Poets & Writers Theater

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.

“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.

“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.