Poets & Writers Theater
Every day we share a new clip of interest to creative writers—author readings, book trailers, publishing panels, craft talks, and more. So grab some popcorn, filter the theater tags by keyword or genre, and explore our sizable archive of literary videos.
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“Genre writing is an amazing place to try new words out as long as you provide good context.” In this video, Stacey Abrams discusses her love of language and word choice, as well as the writing process for her latest novel, While Justice Sleeps (Doubleday, 2021), with Merriam-Webster editors Ammon Shea and Adam Maid.
Tags: Fiction | Stacey Abrams | While Justice Sleeps | Doubleday | 2021 | Merriam-Webster | craft talk -
“People turn to the dictionary for lots of reasons and we can be sure of one thing from this evidence: words matter.” In this video, Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large of Merriam-Webster, explains how the 2019 Word of the Year was chosen and what the most looked up words say about our mindset.
Tags: Not Genre-Specific | Peter Sokolowski | Merriam-Webster | dictionary | 2019 | Word of the Year -
Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large of Merriam-Webster, explains why there is a special set of shelves in the basement of their offices filled with 315,000 words spelled backwards and catalogued. A Q&A with Sokolowski is featured in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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“People think of English as this monolithic thing but it’s really not, it’s much more like a river.” Kory Stamper, associate editor at Merriam-Webster and the author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Pantheon, 2017), explains what it’s like to define English words and why there are those dots in the middle of words in the dictionary.
