Poets & Writers Theater

In this event for the ALOUD series at the Los Angeles Public Library, Sheila Heti reads from her new book, Alphabetical Diaries (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), in which she arranges ten years of her diaries from A to Z, and discusses her choice to tackle an intimate and long-term project in a conversation with author Michelle Tea.

“I really was thinking like I have to work harder than any other writer in the world. I just wanted so badly to figure this out, to figure out how to write.” In this installment of the Paris Review’s “My First Time,” Sheila Heti discusses writing her first book, The Middle Stories (McSweeney’s, 2001), and how she came to write short stories after quitting theater school.

“Sometimes I’ll write for two weeks straight and not write for six months….” Sheila Heti, author of the novel Motherhood (Henry Holt, 2018), talks about her lack of a writing routine and the benefits of letting feelings, ideas, and energy build up and become more complex.