Poets & Writers Theater

“I went through a Philip Glass phase, but I’m out of that now. Lately I write to silence, usually.” In this Vintage Books interview, Kayo Chingonyi answers questions about his literary and pop culture influences, daily routine, and books he thinks everyone should read. Chingonyi won the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize for his debut poetry collection, Kumukanda (Chatto & Windus, 2017).

“What isn’t twisted and dark? Look around! Twisted and dark means new and interesting.” Ottessa Moshfegh speaks with Vintage Books about dark comedy in writing, the difference between art and entertainment, and why she writes about the female body. Moshfegh is the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Penguin Press, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s a notebook, it’s not a collection of poems, it’s not exactly a novel, no fiction, what is this? Nobody knows.” In this video, Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa talks about being influenced by Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. Agualusa won the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award for his novel A General Theory of Oblivion (Vintage, 2016) with Daniel Hahn, who translated the book from the Portuguese. 

"We moved around a lot and I think that's part of what inspired me to become a writer...it's very hard for people like me to answer the question 'Where are you from?' in a very short sentence." Mia Alvar talks about the inspiration behind her story collection, In the Country (Knopf, 2015), for which she received the 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.

"When you read it you realize that everything is constantly changing, and that that is, at least often, the key to a great story..." Ben Marcus, editor of the short fiction anthology New American Stories, published this week by Vintage, talks about one of his favorite things: Ovid's Metamorphoses.

"With first drafts, the best feeling, and sort of the rarest, is when I also don't know what's going to happen.... It's a wonderful pleasure, you're writing the way a reader reads." In this video from the Chicago Humanities Festival, Karen Russell speaks with Time Out Chicago's Laura Pearson about her process. Russell shares how she found her agent Denise Shannon in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"Irony just brushes past a question and leaves you with a thought about it," says Martin Amis. "Satire is meant to be much more vigorous and vehement, the suggestion being that you actually want to change reality—you're agitating for change." A paperback edition of the British novelist's satiric novel, Lionel Asbo: State of England, was published by Vintage last month.

The author of three novels, including The World Without You, which was just released in paperback by Vintage, talks about the importance of reading (books you love and even those you don't) in your life as a writer.