Poets & Writers Theater

“The White Card is a play I wanted to write because it seemed to me that people had a difficult time talking about race. And I thought, ‘What would it look like?’” In this ArtsEmerson video, Claudia Rankine talks about the inspiration for her debut play, The White Card: A Play (Graywolf Press, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I started with one word and I never stopped.” Jimmy Santiago Baca talks with Megan Kamerick on New Mexico in Focus about reading the dictionary, writing poetry while incarcerated, and his experiences learning and educating others about the power of language. Baca’s poetry collection When I Walk Through That Door, I Am: An Immigrant Mother’s Quest for Freedom (Beacon Press, 2019) is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Khaled Khalifa talks with Renée Ragin at Duke University about questions of Arab and Syrian identity, the relationship between his writing and war, and themes of death and difficult journeys in his fifth novel, Death Is Hard Work (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). The novel, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price, is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Poses no significant litter problem. / Ranks as ‘not particularly outstanding,’ according to the Forest Service.” At the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, Forrest Gander reads from the opening of Casting Deep Shade (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), C. D. Wright’s posthumously published collection. The multigenre, three-panel, hardcover book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Not only did To the Lighthouse help me to understand my own story, but my own story helped me to better understand To the Lighthouse—there’s sort of a beautiful reciprocity there.” Katharine Smyth talks with Michelle Dunton Cronauer about how Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel led to writing her debut memoir, All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf (Crown, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Carson McCullers is probably the author I feel the strongest connection to, in the way of empathy and seeing the world.” Benedict Wells, whose fourth novel, The End of Loneliness (Penguin Books, 2019), translated from the German by Charlotte Collins, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about his writing process, how he began as a writer, and some of the authors who have inspired him.

Dorianne Laux reads her poems “If It Weren’t for Bad Ideas, I’d Have No Ideas at All,” “Evening,” “This Close,” and “Savages” at a 2017 reading in Washington, D.C. for the Field Office. Laux’s new collection, Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2019), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“History hides. That’s its job. It hides behind other history.” Sam Lipsyte reads from his fourth novel, Hark (Simon & Schuster, 2019), at the University of San Francisco’s MFA Reading Series. Hark is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“If you’re on Twitter and Facebook and sharing there, there’s no pressure of concealment, and I think good memoir comes out of that place.” Dani Shapiro, whose fifth memoir, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love (Knopf, 2019), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks with Literary Hub’s Emily Temple about how social media could have an adverse effect on writing and storytelling.

“There’s something in the lyric moment that really ruptures the taken for granted-ness of the world.” Meena Alexander discusses her writing process, artistic collaborations, and the sensory experience of being a poet in this 2015 interview for CUNY TV. The author of five books of poetry, including most recently Atmospheric Embroidery (TriQuarterly Books, 2018), Alexander died at the age of sixty-seven on November 21, 2018.

“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.

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.

“They await counterintelligence / transmissions from our laptops / and our blue teeth, await word / of humanity’s critical mass, / our ripening.” Kyle Dargan’s poem “The Robots Are Coming” is brought to life in this animated Motionpoems film by Julia Iverson. Dargan’s new poetry collection, Anagnorisis (TriQuarterly Books, 2018), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this humorous video, Gary Shteyngart receives dubious feedback on his fourth novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), from “Sean, the World’s Worst Editor,” which includes inserting a laugh track into the book, holding book signings in an actual lake, and changing Shteyngart’s last name. Lake Success is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Jeff Park’s living room was as palatial as the entrance to a modest New York museum.” Gary Shteyngart reads an excerpt from his fourth novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), at the University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Lake Success is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I plot beforehand to the extent that I have an idea of where I’m going, but I’m always willing to toss that out the window...” Stephen Markley talks about his start as a writer, his writing habits, and the publication of his first novel, Ohio (Simon & Schuster, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was the first time that literature felt personal, relevant, urgent....” Laura van den Berg talks about the transformative experience of reading contemporary fiction and short stories during her first writing workshop in college. Van den Berg’s second novel, The Third Hotel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.