Poets & Writers Theater

"A novel is a historic reenactment and a short story is a diorama." Elizabeth McCracken discusses the different challenges of writing a novel and a short story, and reads from her latest collection of short stories, Thunderstuck (Dial Press, 2014), at the 2014 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. McCracken will deliver the keynote on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

"Can we reclaim a word? Can we take a word and drop it and crack it open, or are we always a prisoner to it?" Poets Terrance Hayes and Saeed Jones talk about craft, the evolution of language, and why America needs poetry for HEArt, a journal of contemporary literature and art that challenges discrimination and promotes social justice. Jones will join the Why We Write panel on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

In this video, Benjamin Percy, author of Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction (Graywolf Press, 2016), is challenged to tell a five-minute true story from a randomly selected prompt for the Back Fence PDX storytelling series. Percy joins the two-day Poets & Writers Live conference in San Francisco on January 14 and 15, 2017.

"I fell in love with any number of literary writers... but I never fell out of love with genre." Benjamin Percy talks about genre fiction, favorite authors, and his novel Red Moon (Grand Central Publishing, 2013). Percy will lead the seminar, Staging the Iconic Moment: Set-Pieces, on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

Matthew Gavin Frank talks about one of his favorite characters from Pot Farm (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), a nonfiction account of his experience living on a marijuana farm in Northern California. Frank, whose most recent book, The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America's Food, was published by Liveright in November, will be a panelist at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas on January 9.

With an introduction by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, Carrie Fountain reads from her books Burn Lake (Penguin, 2010) and Instant Winner (Penguin, 2014) as part of the Lannan Foundation's Poetry Sundays in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Fountain and Nye will be panelists at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas on January 9.

Ben Fountain reads from his novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ecco, 2012), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, at the 2012 National Book Award finalists reading in New York City. Fountain will join the Why We Write panel on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

"Write Around Portland just ignited that fire in me: to write, to get back to writing, and to really find my voice." Reuben Alvarez-Paris speaks about his experiences with the nonprofit organization dedicated to community and writing. Jenny Chu, program coordinator at Write Around Portland, will lead a panel at Poets & Writers Live on October 17 in Portland, Oregon.

Barry Lopez, author of the story collection Outside (Trinity University Press, 2014) discusses the ideas and social issues in his essays and stories with Adam Davis, executive director of Oregon Humanities, for the Think & Drink series. Lopez will be delivering the keynote on October 17 at Poets & Writers Live in Portland, Oregon.

David Shields and Caleb Powell, coauthors of I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel (Knopf, 2015), enjoy a colorful discussion while riding a ferris wheel in a video from the Los Angeles Review of Books. For more on Shields and Powell, watch their appearance at the Poets & Writers Live event in San Francisco.

This short film by Nick Twemlow was inspired by the poem "Too Young to Marry but Not Too Young to Die" by Joyce Carol Oates. The piece premiered at Poets & Writers Live in San Francisco on January 10, as part of the multigenre, multimedia “Inspiration Experiment” featuring Oates, singer-songwriter Ben Arthur, visual artist Roman Muradov, and dancer Sarah Fiske.

"If I didn't have poetry, I would not have access to the most interesting part of my mind." Pulitzer Prize–winner and former U.S. poet laureate Kay Ryan speaks with the Aspen Institute and offers advice to young poets. Ryan will deliver the "poetry keynote" on January 10 at the Poets & Writers Live event in San Francisco.

Edward Hirsch speaks about American poets and poetry abroad at the Academy of American Poets' 2013 Poets Forum. Hirsch discusses his two new books, Gabriel and A Poet's Glossary, in the September/October 2014 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. For more Hirsch, watch him on the Why We Write panel at the Poets & Writers Live event in New York City this past June.