Poets & Writers Theater

In this event hosted by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, Jane Wong reads “To Love a Mosquito,” a chapter from her memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023), and pieces of her mother’s diary, followed by a discussion about her approaches to poetry versus creative nonfiction.

In this episode of Tightwires with host Hiba Tahir, poet Patrycja Humienik talks about navigating grad school and writing, identity, and her debut collection, We Contain Landscapes (Tin House, 2025), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this virtual book launch event hosted by the Writer’s Center, Zahid Rafiq reads from his debut short story collection, The World With Its Mouth Open (Tin House, 2024), and discusses his experiences living in Kashmir in a conversation with Emily Fridlund. Rafiq’s book is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kenzie Allen reads from her debut poetry collection, Cloud Missives (Tin House, 2024), and talks about the themes in the book for this Left Bank Books reading with poets Tola Sylvan and Marc-Anthony Valle. Allen is featured in “The Luminous Life: Our Twentieth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this interview for the Otherppl With Brad Listi podcast, Morgan Talty offers advice about book advances and publishing, and talks about the popularity of short stories and writing his first novel, Fire Exit (Tin House, 2024). For more from Talty, read his installment of our Ten Questions series.

Leslie Sainz reads her poem “Malecón/Miami,” which appears in her debut collection, Have You Been Long Enough at Table (Tin House, 2023), in this short film produced by the O, Miami Poetry Festival. Sainz is featured in “Performing the Future: Our Nineteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was a curiosity, it was a fear that led me to write the book.” In this interview for the Otherppl With Brad Listi podcast, Athena Dixon speaks about living and dying alone, and the origins of her new essay collection, The Loneliness Files (Tin House, 2023), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Rebekah Bergman celebrates the release of her debut novel, The Museum of Human History (Tin House, 2023), with author Rita Bullwinkel at Green Apple Books in San Francisco. Bergman is featured in “First Fiction 2023” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch Megan Fernandes, author of I Do Everything I’m Told (Tin House, 2023), and Adrienne Raphel, author of Our Dark Academia (Rescue Press, 2022), read from their work and discuss their poetry collections in this reading held at the American Library in Paris. 

In this 2022 virtual reading, Charif Shanahan reads from his second poetry collection, Trace Evidence (Tin House, 2023), alongside Keetje Kuipers, author of All Its Charms (BOA Editions, 2019), for the Chicago Poetry Center’s Blue Hour reading series. Trace Evidence is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Raymond Antrobus discusses and reads his poem “Plantation Paint,” which appears in his collection All the Names Given (Tin House/Picador, 2021), for which he was shortlisted for the 2021 T. S. Eliot Prize.

“It would be a beautiful world if young people were encouraged to chart their histories in really deep and meaningful ways.” Prince Shakur talks about his debut memoir, When They Tell You to Be Good (Tin House, 2022), and the significance of writing in this genre for the Black Writer’s Studio podcast with host Khadijah Ali-Coleman, executive director of the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Shakur is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2022” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Scientists say the average human/ life gets three months longer every year. / By this math, death will be optional,” reads Nicole Sealey from her poem “The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born,” which appears in her collection Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), in this reading with Morgan Parker, author of Magical Negro (Tin House, 2019), at Scripps College.

“Recalling the terror we experienced long ago, I wonder, is that something they wanted, to be acknowledged?” Belongings is a short film about the loss of a mother and a haunted childhood home directed by Alex Coppola and written by and starring Morgan Talty, author of the debut story collection, Night of the Living Rez (Tin House, 2022). Talty is introduced by Brandon Hobson in “First Fiction 2022” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When Henry started this walk at age thirty-two in 1849, he wore a broad-brimmed hat designed with a miniature shelf to hold the flowers he found,” reads Ben Shattuck from his essay “Three Walks,” first published in the Common and included in his book, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau (Tin House, April 2022). For more on the book, read “The Written Image: Ben Shattuck” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I do hope one day to be free of this body’s dry wood...” In this Button Poetry video, Kaveh Akbar, author of the poetry collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), reads a poem that was published in Tin House’s “The Rehab Issue” in 2017.

“It turns out that the universe is heavier than our initial calculations—some people call this extra weight dark matter.” This animated short film by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of the debut novel, Harmless Like You (Norton, 2017), explores connections between the physical weight of the universe and the human struggle for emotional well-being.

In this book trailer for his debut memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties (Grove Press, 2016), Rob Spillman recounts defining experiences from time spent as a child in Berlin, Aspen, and Baltimore. Spillman, who serves as the editor of Tin House and the executive editor of Tin House Books, is featured in Agents & Editors in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Dana Isokawa, assistant editor of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks with the editors of some of Portland's most exciting literary magazines about the kind of work they're looking for, the relationships they cultivate with their authors, and the balance between publishing traditional work and developing new and innovative ideas for both print and digital literature. Panelists include LeAnna Crawford of Gertrude, Cheston Knapp of Tin House, Travis Meyer of Poor Claudia, and Kim Winterheimer of Masters Review.