Poets & Writers Theater

“What you can do is tell your best story, at that moment.” Camille T. Dungy, whose first essay collection, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys Into Race, Motherhood, and History (Norton, 2017), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, offers writers advice on how to overcome roadblocks in this Austin Community College video.

“When she first moved in, she endured months of casual cruelty like a tree would—without flinching.” In this video, Arundhati Roy reads from the first chapter of her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Knopf, 2017). Roy speaks about her much-anticipated book in “Worth the Wait” by Renée H. Shea in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

On Nashville Public Television’s A Word on Words, Lisa Ko speaks about her debut novel, The Leavers (Algonquin Books, 2017), which is longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in fiction.

“Honestly I think that the reason his head was in my brain was because of that hair metal band Tesla...” Samantha Hunt reveals the inspiration behind her second novel, The Invention of Everything Else (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), which fictionalizes the last days of inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla’s life. Hunt’s first story collection, The Dark Dark (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Diksha Basu, author of the debut novel, The Windfall (Crown, 2017), answers eight book-related questions, including her favorite book to give as a gift. Basu is featured in “First Fiction 2017” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Allegra Goodman introduces and reads from her novel The Cookbook Collector (Dial Press, 2010) at the 2010 National Book Festival. Goodman’s sixth novel, The Chalk Artist (Dial Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Every day after school, the factory men yell / mamacita, /​ make noises like sucking /​ mangos.” ​Erika L. Sánchez reads the poem “Hija de la Chingada” from her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion (Graywolf Press, 2017), for the Palabra Pura bilingual reading series. The collection is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Alissa Nutting has a conversation with Dumbo Feather about her debut novel, Tampa (Ecco, 2013), and challenging gender representations in her writing. Nutting’s second novel, Made for Love (Ecco, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What makes life and fiction important and interesting and meaningful is for it to be examined...” Dina Nayeri talks to Bill Kenower of Author Magazine about researching her first book, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (Riverhead Books, 2013), and her beliefs about imagination and the writing process. Nayeri’s second novel, Refuge (Riverhead Books, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What is a connection made up of when two people have incredible inequality between them?” Michelle Kuo speaks about her debut memoir, Reading With Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship (Random House, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Jess Arndt’s action text “Collective Body Possum” is performed by Swedish electronic music duo the Knife during their 2014 world tour. Arndt, whose debut story collection, Large Animals, was published in May by Catapult, is featured in “First Fiction 2017” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Roxane Gay reads part of “The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion” from her essay collection, Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial, 2014). Her debut memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The first summer fair of the season, the East Avalon Fair, was a ‘coming out’ party for everyone on the eastern tip of the island.” Julia Fierro reads from a draft of her novel The Gypsy Moth Summer (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, for the Why There Are Words reading series.

“I was not at my mother’s side when she took her last breath.” Sherman Alexie reads from his debut memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (Little, Brown, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

This short film is one of twenty in Christos Chrissopoulos’s Look Twenty project, which each consist of twenty photographs projected at equal intervals to create a visual narrative. Chrissopoulos’s first novella, The Parthenon Bomber (Other Press, 2017), translated from the Greek by John Cullen, is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I’m aware of the rules, but part of what makes you an artist is how you deviate from those rules, and that’s all about play.” Bao Phi, whose poetry collection Thousand Star Hotel (Coffee House Press, 2017) is in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the importance of reading, writing, drawing, and playing to engage the imagination.