Poets & Writers Theater

“You don’t need a lot of sensitivity or soul to feel moved by a redwood forest,” says Richard Powers about the origins of his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Overstory (Norton, 2018). In this 92nd Street Y video, Powers joins Barbara Kingsolver, author of the novel Unsheltered (HarperCollins, 2018), for a reading and conversation with Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine. The authors were featured in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Take a microscope to the face of a beautiful woman and tell me it isn’t grotesque. Poetry is such a broad genre, it covers so many ways of looking.” Kim Hyesoon talks about her newest collection, Autobiography of a Death (New Directions, 2018), translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi, what it means to be a female poet, and why she thinks poetry is disappearing in this 2018 interview with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

“I do come back to poets from the Caribbean especially, who gave me permission to be a writer.” In this interview with City of Asylum, Kwame Dawes talks about the writers whose work he revisits, his writing routine, and why he doesn’t use the word “inspiration.” Dawes is the editor in chief of Prairie Schooner and is featured in “Telling a Different Story: How to Cultivate Inclusivity at Literary Magazines” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I didn’t know real people could be writers when they grew up. That would have been like saying that I wanted to be a fairy or a movie star.” Barbara Kingsolver, the author most recently of Unsheltered (Harper, 2018), talks to the Free Library of Philadelphia about how a childhood love of books made her a “citizen of the world” despite growing up in a small town in Kentucky. Kingsolver and Richard Powers speak about writing fiction in “A Talk in the Woods” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The city erupts into a riot. The people chant, ‘Burn, baby, burn.’ The city is on fire.” In this video, A. G. Lombardo introduces his debut novel, Graffiti Palace (MCD Books, 2018), which is a retelling of The Odyssey set during the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. Lombardo is featured in “5 Over 50” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Glory Edim, founder of Well-Read Black Girl, speaks with Rich Fahle of PBS Books about the beginnings of her book club and organization, and the anthology Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves (Ballantine, 2018), which is featured in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s the way we have to connect not only the intellect, but also the heart, to engage the whole body with breath, with rhythm.” Natasha Trethewey, recipient of the 22nd Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities, talks about the immense value of poetry. Trethewey’s fifth poetry collection, Monument: Poems New and Selected (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The extraordinary story of a bloodstained, diminutive crumb of a servant girl who went on to become the world’s most famous wax sculptor,” is how the book trailer describes Edward Carey’s sixth novel, Little (Riverhead Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Catch whispers in libraries. / Greet strangers with acorns and grapefruit. / Remember eyes, ghosts, smoke. / Watch brothers as they disappear.” Maw Shein Win reads several poems, including “Flower Instructions,” from her debut collection, Invisible Gifts (Manic D Press, 2018), for the Radar Reading series at the San Francisco Public Library in 2017. Win is featured in “5 Over 50” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kiese Laymon talks to Clemonce Heard about his debut memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir (Scribner, 2018), growing up in Mississippi, the influence of music on his writing, and reckoning with weight in all its different forms. Heavy is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It takes facility, it takes brilliance, it takes verve!” Marilyn Chin talks to Joseph Ross about what it takes to write poetry and reads poems from her fifth collection, A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

At OneLife Institute’s World Peace Day event, Alice Walker reads “Loving Oakland” from her tenth poetry collection, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart (37 INK, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“That’s always the surprise to me, that I find myself in the middle of a subject that I had never anticipated.” In this video, Susan Orlean speaks about what led her to write The Library Book (Simon & Schuster, 2018), which explores her love of libraries and reexamines the historic 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library. Orlean is profiled in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.