Poets & Writers Theater

In this episode of The Interview, a podcast from the New York Times, Arundhati Roy speaks with host Lulu Garcia-Navarro about government censorship and political repression, the role of the artist amidst crisis, and the challenges of writing about her mother in her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me (Scribner, 2025), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“This is where our story as Black Americans begins.” Watch the trailer for The 1619 Project, a six-part Hulu docuseries adaptation of the book of the same name hosted by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones.

“Every community on earth should wish they had a Zora Hurston.” In this short 2008 New York Times documentary by Damien Cave and Diana Oliva Cave, locals of Eatonville, Florida discuss their relationship with renowned author Zora Neale Hurston and the impact she had in saving the town’s future.

“Fiction has the ability to expand people’s points of view, and also to have the contradictions...” In this video, Min Jin Lee answers questions from readers about her novel Pachinko (Grand Central Publishing, 2017) for PBS NewsHour’s Now Read This book club, a partnership with the New York Times.

“I don’t think I could’ve happily stayed here in the world if I did not have a way of thinking about it, which is what writing is for me.” In this New York Times video, Toni Morrison speaks about what motivates her to keep writing. Morrison’s new novel, God Help the Child (Knopf, 2015), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

The best-selling author of eleven books, including A Writer's Life (Knopf, 2006), a former reporter for the New York Times, and the father of The New Journalism, Gay Talese is also one of the best-dressed writers around. Check out this video of the elegent author by Jake Davis, and while you're at it, watch the latest episode of the web series Put This On, which features an interview with Talese.