Poets & Writers Theater
Every day we share a new clip of interest to creative writers—author readings, book trailers, publishing panels, craft talks, and more. So grab some popcorn, filter the theater tags by keyword or genre, and explore our sizable archive of literary videos.
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“Roberto was brown and his people lived next door so of course I went over on weekends.” Listen to Bryan Washington read an excerpt from his debut story collection, Lot (Riverhead Books, 2019), for this Penguin Random House video series, which encourages listening to audiobooks before bed to help with sleep.
Tags: Fiction | Bryan Washington | Riverhead Books | 2019 | Penguin Random House | audiobook | bedtime stories -
“The key to an amazing story is the heart of the story,” says novelist Daniel José Older in this segment of Penguin Random House’s Meet the Author series. “If you’re a writer, it’s your compass. It’s what’s going to guide you forward to finish the story.”
Tags: Fiction | Daniel José Older | Penguin Random House | Meet the Author | writing advice | 2020 -
“This novel is about violence and loss, but it’s also about finding answers.” At a Penguin Random House event with librarians, Julia Phillips speaks about her debut novel, Disappearing Earth (Knopf, 2019), which is a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in fiction.
Tags: Fiction | Julia Phillips | Disappearing Earth | Knopf | 2019 | Penguin Random House | National Book Award -
“I wanna be / all the girls I’ve ever loved / mean girls, shy girls, loud girls, my girls, / all of us angry on our porches…” Olivia Gatwood reads poems from her debut collection, Life of the Party (Dial Press, 2019), at the Bell House in Brooklyn.
Tags: Poetry | Spoken Word | Olivia Gatwood | Life of the Party | Dial Press | Penguin Random House | 2019 | reading -
“It’s important to be a reader because it can help make you a better person.” Anissa Gray, author of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (Berkley, 2019), talks about the importance of reading, offers advice to aspiring writers, and explains why she does not loan out books in this interview for Penguin Random House.
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“In the days since her arrest, Mary Ripley has not slept—ironic, since sleeping is precisely what she was doing on the night her landlady was murdered.” In this short animation, Christina Dalcher narrates her seven-sentence story, “The Burden of Proof.” Dalcher is the author of the debut novel, Vox (Berkley, 2018), which takes place in a dystopian United States where women are only allowed to speak one hundred words per day.
Tags: Fiction | Christina Dalcher | Vox | Berkley | 2018 | animation | short film | 7 Sentence Stories | The Burden of Proof | Penguin Random House -
What would a mashup book series by Lee Child look like? In this humorous video, Child, the author most recently of Past Tense (Delacorte Press, 2018), presents potential mashup titles featuring Jack Reacher, the protagonist of his crime thriller series.
Tags: Fiction | Lee Child | Past Tense | 2018 | mashup | Jack Reacher | Penguin Random House | crime thriller -
In this behind-the-scenes video from Penguin Random House, the multistep process of publishing a book is presented as it moves from author to reader, from manuscript editing and book design to distribution and bookstore sale. The book shown in the journey is the debut short story collection, Back Talk (Penguin Books, 2018), by Danielle Lazarin, who is featured in Literary MagNet in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Fiction | Danielle Lazarin | Back Talk | Penguin Books | 2018 | Penguin Random House | Literary MagNet | January/February 2018 -
Annette Danek, senior vice president of fulfillment at Penguin Random House, narrates a 360-degree tour of the distribution warehouse in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where twenty-five trailers of books arrive from printers daily. Each day, over one million books are then processed, picked, packaged, and prepared for shipment to independent bookstores and readers.
Tags: Not Genre-Specific | Penguin Random House | Annette Danek | tour -
“One Halloween night, a distraught young woman named Harriet stopped midway across the Brooklyn Bridge…” In this animated short film, Fiona Davis, author of The Masterpiece (Dutton, 2018), narrates her seven-sentence story, “Girl on the Bridge.”
Tags: Fiction | Fiona Davis | The Masterpiece | Dutton Books | 2018 | animation | short film | Penguin Random House | 7 Sentence Stories -
In this animated short film, David Bell narrates his seven-sentence story, “The Investigation.” Bell is the director of Western Kentucky University’s MFA creative writing program and the author of the crime thriller novel Somebody’s Daughter (Berkley, 2018).
Tags: Fiction | David Bell | animation | short film | The Investigation | Penguin Random House | 2018 | 7 Sentence Stories -
In this video series from Penguin Random House, readers on the streets of New York are asked for their thoughts on books and reading. Malik from Long Island shares why John Green's Paper Towns (Dutton Books, 2008) is his favorite book.
Tags: Penguin Random House | John Green | Paper Towns | Dutton Books | Fiction -
“There is some kind of energy that I’m manifesting as I’m writing line to line.” English professor and author George Saunders discusses the thought processes and creative forces that shape his characters and inform his stories. His latest book, Tenth of December: Stories, was published by Random House this year.
Tags: Penguin Random House | George Saunders | Tenth of December | Fiction