Poets & Writers Theater

This reading hosted by the University of Arizona Poetry Center presents the work of Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author most recently of Children of the Land (Harper, 2020), and Marwal Helal, author most recently of Ante body (Nightboat Books, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s a story that traces three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her legacy.” In this video, Tara M. Stringfellow talks about her debut novel, Memphis (Dial Press, 2022), and her writing process, which involves listening to opera and jazz music. Memphis is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“We in the fields, the watchers from the burnt slope, / Facing the west, facing the bright sky, hopelessly longing / to know the red beauty…” In this 2011 PBS NewsHour video, Jeffrey Yang reads William Everson’s poem “We in the Fields” along with other poems published in Birds, Beasts, and Seas: Nature Poems From New Directions, an anthology edited by the poet celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of New Directions. Yang’s new poetry collection, Line and Light (Graywolf Press, 2022), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch Alexander MacLeod read from and discuss his latest short story collection, Animal Person (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), with Richard Ford in this virtual conversation hosted by Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. MacLeod’s story collection is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The technology was described as discreet. Perhaps my secret would be mine to keep,” reads Fiona Murphy from her debut memoir, The Shape of Sound (Text Publishing, 2022), about her experience of coming to terms with her deafness for the WestWords’ Writing Western Sydney series. Murphy’s memoir is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video from the 2021 Windham-Campbell Virtual Festival, Renee Gladman reads from her book Ana Patova Crosses a Bridge (Dorothy, a publishing project, 2013) and collaborates in a performance with sound artist Val Jeanty. Gladman’s new book, Plans for Sentences (Wave Books, 2022), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this interview with Simon & Schuster president and CEO Jonathan Karp, Jennifer Egan speaks about the pros and cons of technology and choosing the right title for her new novel, The Candy House, which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What you can do is tell your best story, at that moment.” Camille T. Dungy, whose first essay collection, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys Into Race, Motherhood, and History (Norton, 2017), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, offers writers advice on how to overcome roadblocks in this Austin Community College video.

In this Astra House virtual event cohosted by Book Culture, Aaiún Nin speaks about their debut poetry collection, Broken Halves of a Milky Sun (Astra House, 2022), with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing (Astra House, 2022). Nin’s book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this interview with Charlene Wang for Foster, an online platform for writers to craft stories together, Yanyi discusses answering letters from writers for his online advice column the Reading and his second poetry collection, Dream of the Divided Field (One World, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 2021 reading at the Poetry Center in San Francisco State University, Angel Dominguez reads two letters to Diego de Landa from their first poetry collection, Desgraciado (the collected letters) (Nightboat Books, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the March/April 2022 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“All lions must lean into something other than a roar,” reads Roger Reeves from his poem “Grendel” included in his new collection, Best Barbarian (Norton, 2022), in this short film directed by Osvaldo Cuevas. Reeves’s collection is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“A lot of my life has been unconventional, but it has led to this point and I wouldn’t have reached this point if I’d given up.” In this Penguin Books UK video, Booker Prize–winning author Bernardine Evaristo speaks with her longtime editor Simon Prosser about her writing career and books, including her new memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (Grove Press, 2022).

“Try as we might, we can’t / help believing heaven is up” In this video, Emily Van Kley performs aerial acrobatics and reads “Bodies” from her second poetry collection, Arrhythmia (Persea Books, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Dartmouth video celebrating Robert Frost’s birthday last March, Matthew Olzmann reads his poem “Letter to the person who, during the Q&A session after the reading, asked for career advice” from his latest collection, Constellation Route (Alice James Books, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When I think about people, I think about space, how much space a person takes up and how much use that person provides.” In this Alaska Quarterly Review reading, Weike Wang reads from her second novel, Joan Is Okay (Random House, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I believe that the best books aren’t those that entertain us. The best books are those that hurt us.” In this 2018 interview at the Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark, Italian writer Domenico Starnone talks about the pleasure and exhaustion of writing and refers to a letter Kafka wrote about the importance of writing books “that are like an axe that breaks the frozen chest.” Starnone’s novel Trust (Europa Editions, 2021), translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri, is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I am a product of this country that I interrogate in this book,” says Albert Samaha, author of Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes (Riverhead Books, 2021), in this episode of Coffee & Conversations with Enrique Rosell, program manager at Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab. Samaha’s debut memoir is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this virtual poetry reading hosted by Annie Bloom’s Books, Teresa K. Miller reads from her new collection, Borderline Fortune (Penguin Books, 2021), and Amanda Moore reads from her debut collection, Requeening (Ecco, 2021), both winners of the 2020 National Poetry Series. Moore’s Requeening is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I’ve turned old. I ache most / To be confronted by the real, / By the cold, the pitiless, the bleak.” In this 2018 video from the 92nd Street Y, Tracy K. Smith reads her poem “Annunciation,” which appears in her new collection, Such Color: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2021). Smith’s fifth poetry collection is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.