Poets & Writers Theater

“This book is very much about climate change…the collision between the human in nature, between internal and external, between domesticity and the wild.” Lauren Groff speaks about her short story collection Florida (Riverhead Books, 2018) with Rich Fahle of PBS Books at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair in Tampa. “Severe Weather in the Sunshine State,” a profile of Groff by Bethane Patrick, is in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Don’t worry about whether you’re writing anything, worry about if you’re sitting there attempting to write something or not.” Mohsin Hamid speaks to Granta about his most recent novel, Exit West (Riverhead Books, 2017), the job of being a writer, and what he has learned from Douglas Adams.

Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin talks about living in Berlin and reads from her debut novel, Fever Dream (Riverhead Books, 2017), translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell. Fever Dream, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, was the winner of the 2018 Tournament of Books beating out George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House, 2017) in the final round.

“I narrate in such a free manner that, I hope, inspires the reader.” In this interview for Louisiana Channel, Olga Tokarczuk talks about air travel and how it influenced the story structure for her most recent novel, Flights (Riverhead Books, 2018), translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft, which is longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.

“I didn’t begin with the dog—I wrote that book the way I’ve written all my books which is I start at the beginning and I move on and create the story as I go along.” Sigrid Nunez talks with Rich Fahle of PBS Books about her latest novel, The Friend (Riverhead Books, 2018), at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair in Tampa.

“For me personally, it’s about recovering and celebrating a language.” Daniel Alarcón talks about his work as the executive producer of NPR’s Radio Ambulante, the Spanish-language podcast that presents long-form Latin American narratives. Alarcón’s second story collection, The King Is Always Above the People (Riverhead Books, 2017), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted to write a book that would help you take a little bit more care.” Gabriel Tallent talks about the main character in his debut novel, My Absolute Darling (Riverhead Books, 2017), and how he hopes the book will resonate with readers. The novel is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What makes life and fiction important and interesting and meaningful is for it to be examined...” Dina Nayeri talks to Bill Kenower of Author Magazine about researching her first book, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (Riverhead Books, 2013), and her beliefs about imagination and the writing process. Nayeri’s second novel, Refuge (Riverhead Books, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Brit Bennett, author of The Mothers (Riverhead Books, 2016), speaks about her first memorable piece of writing and her experiences as a young reader and writer.

Lesley Nneka Arimah reads “War Stories” from her debut story collection, What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky (Riverhead, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The idea was to use a kind of fragmented approach to talking about colonialism...because I think that’s increasingly the way we think about and access historical narratives.” In this video, Katie Kitamura talks about the structural choices behind her second novel, Gone to the Forest (Free Press, 2012). Kitamura’s most recent novel, A Separation (Riverhead Books, 2017), tells the story of the end of a marriage and a husband gone missing in Greece.

In this video, Book Riot offers six recommendations for books that feature refugees including Girl at War (Random House, 2015) by Sara Novi­ć, Inside Out and Back Again (Harper, 2011) by Thanhha Lai, and Exit West (Riverhead Books, 2017) by Mohsin Hamid.

“For me, books are the things that tell you what you need to do in life and they’re also the things that help you make sense of your life.” Will Schwalbe, author of Books for Living (Knopf, 2016), speaks with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown about the importance of reading and the books that have taught him life lessons such as Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (Dial Press, 1956), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (Knopf, 1977).

The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook, is a South Korean film adaptation of Sarah Waters’s crime novel Fingersmith (Riverhead Books, 2002). The film, which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, transfers the setting of the Victorian era story—about an orphaned pickpocket hired to pose as a maid for a wealthy heiress—to Korea under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s.

“It took me a very long time to learn how to write about Colombia.” At the 2015 National Book Festival, Juan Gabriel Vásquez speaks with PBS NewHour’s Jeffrey Brown about his literary influences and journey to write stories about Colombia, where he was born. Vásquez’s fourth novel, Reputations (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“This is my house—it doesn't have any curtains and half the time half the door is open, that's true.” Claire-Louise Bennett reads from her debut book, Pond (Riverhead Books, 2016), which is featured in “First Fiction 2016: Nine More Notable Debuts” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

The feature film adaptation of British author Paula Hawkins's best-selling thriller, The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), relocates the novel from London to New York and follows a woman who becomes entangled in a mystery. Directed by Tate Taylor with a screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, the film stars Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, and Laura Prepon.

"A few years ago, God gave me a birthday present. Joey McIntyre was coming to Madison, Wisconsin, four days before my twenty-seventh birthday." Listen to Emma Straub read her essay "Teenage Dream" for the Franklin Park Reading Series. Her new novel, Modern Lovers (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"To the naked eye Boudicca is a haze of noxious green that lurks among fronds of seaweed looking exactly like the aftermath of a chemical spill." Helen Oyeyemi reads her short story "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" at the British Council Literature Seminar in Berlin. Oyeyemi's collection of stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

One BookTuber offers his view on 2015's book lists from the New York Times to Publishers Weekly, Amazon to Goodreads. Paula Hawkins's debut novel, The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), James Hannaham's Delicious Foods (Little, Brown, 2015), and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) are books that top the lists.