Poets & Writers Theater

“This book really is inspired by my grandfather, and a lot of it is actually true.” In this Politics and Prose video, Louise Erdrich talks about her most recent novel, The Night Watchman (Harper, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“One of the reasons why I wrote Deacon King Kong is because I wanted to show a world where people actually got along.” In this video, James McBride, whose novel Deacon King Kong (Riverhead Books, 2020) is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the inspiration for the novel and shows CBS This Morning host Jeff Glor around the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn where he grew up.

“In the morning, the one who is mostly enlightened comes in.” At this Free Library of Philadelphia author event, Jenny Offill reads from her new novel, Weather (Knopf, 2020), and speaks about her writing process and love of libraries. Weather is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s particularly, specifically, about what it means to be Asian American, which is a subject that I’ve always actually kind of avoided. I’ve always indirectly approached it, but I’ve never directly tackled it.” At Malvern Books, Cathy Park Hong describes her experience writing her first essay collection, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (One World, 2020), featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and reads “The End of White Innocence” from the book.

John Murillo reads “Trouble Man,” a poem from his first collection, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher Books, 2010), and a poem by Etheridge Knight for the P.O.P series, shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Murillo’s second collection, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I successfully avoided husbands and children and day jobs—those things can all really interfere with your productivity.” In an interview with Emma Watson, Rebecca Solnit discusses how she has managed to write so prolifically, the communication of information as a cultural phenomenon, and the themes in her first memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence (Viking, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was employee number twenty, and the fourth woman.” In this video, Anna Wiener reads from and discusses her debut memoir, Uncanny Valley (MCD/FSG, 2020), with editor Laura Marsh at the Strand Book Store in New York. For more about the book, read Wiener’s installment of Ten Questions.

“It’s a story that stands by itself, I just had to type it.” In this interview, Isabel Allende speaks about her new novel, A Long Petal of the Sea (Ballantine Books, 2020), and her history and friendship with Book Passage founder and president Elaine Petrocelli. A Long Petal of the Sea is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“That is a vapor at day’s far edge. That’s Lauren Bacall in a penny / arcade. That’s a streaming video but will not load.” At the 2012 TILTS Summer Workshop at the University of Texas in Austin, Chad Bennett reads “George Dyer” and “Other Weathers” from his first poetry collection, Your New Feeling Is the Artifact of a Bygone Era (Sarabande Books, 2020), which is currently featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and translator Robert Hass reads “Okefenokee: A Story,” “Pertinent Divagations Toward an Ode to Inuit Carvers,” and other poems from his book Summer Snow (Ecco, 2020) at the 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference in Tennessee. The book, Hass’s seventh poetry collection, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I hope that people can take away that these racial biases, these class biases, exist harmoniously within really kind gestures and authentic love for someone.” In this video, Kiley Reid talks about the characters in her debut novel, Such a Fun Age (Putnam, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Soundless, it crosses a line, quiets into a seed / & then whatever makes a seed. almost like gone / but not gone. the air kept its shape.” At the 2019 Lambda Literary Retreat, Danez Smith reads “undetectable” and “say it with your whole black mouth” from their third poetry collection, Homie (Graywolf Press, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I love To the Lighthouse, but they never get to the lighthouse.” In this episode of Cocktails With Bright Antenna, Benjamin Percy talks about the differences between literary fiction and genre fiction, how some writers are gardeners and some are architects, and reveals the origins of his phobias. Percy’s latest book, Suicide Woods (Graywolf Press, 2019), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The very act of reading is an empathetic act.” In this Aspen Institute video, Adrienne Brodeur talks about her writing process and reads from her debut memoir, Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted to encapsulate the experience I was having, and particularly the memories in terms of what they mean to me now, as someone who’s thirty-three years old.” At Unbound, a literary series copresented by BAM and Greenlight Bookstore, Saeed Jones talks about the drive that compelled him to write his debut memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives (Simon & Schuster, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Beauty’s just a bite / away from want. / I’ve seen Fox chew / off her own limb / for one more taste / of freedom.” In this 2012 video, Tiffany Midge reads from her collection The Woman Who Married a Bear (University of New Mexico Press, 2016) at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Midge’s debut memoir, Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s (Bison Books, 2019), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Olive is going through the late—very late—autumn of her life.” Elizabeth Strout talks about the title character and depictions of weather and seasons in her new novel, Olive, Again (Random House, 2019), the follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, Olive Kitteridge (Random House, 2008). Olive, Again is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“the long, drunk room a darkened sanctuary. / windows blocked opaque to make day insignificant / light impaired.” In this short film, Kevin Coval reads “Ode to the Dive Bar” from his poetry collection Everything Must Go (Haymarket Books, 2019), illustrated by Langston Allston, which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted to center the emotions and the feelings of the actual enslaved people.” Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks about what inspired him to write his debut novel, The Water Dancer (One World, 2019), as he walks through Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello, with Gayle King for CBS This Morning.

Mary Ruefle reads a selection of her poetry and prose at the 2019 Newcastle Poetry Festival at the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. Ruefle’s fourteenth poetry collection, Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.