Poets & Writers Theater

“You don’t write a book for a market, a publisher, or an agent; you write it because your heart calls you to write it.” Tayari Jones speaks about her “most personal” novel Silver Sparrow (Algonquin Books, 2011) and about what keeps her going as a writer in this Waterstones video.

“This is a novel about marriage and about what we owe one another and what you can expect from another person.” Tayari Jones speaks about her fourth novel, An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, 2018), and what she loves about bookstores in this video for Barnes & Noble. Jones shares her experience at Ucross in “The Writers Retreats Where Big Books Are Born” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine, leads a conversation with Edward Hirsch, Tayari Jones, Victor LaValle, Roxana Robinson, and Tiphanie Yanique about the personal, political, and professional reasons we choose to write while living in a culture, a family, or a community that doesn’t always value what we do.

Tayari Jones answers questions about her writing process and discusses the obstacles she experienced in publishing her novel Silver Sparrow (Algonquin Books, 2011). Read Jones's interview with debut novelist Angela Flournoy in “First Fiction 2015" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.