Poets & Writers Theater

Poet and painter John Giorno gives a tour of his home on the Bowery in New York City and points out William Burroughs’s former bunker bedroom, kept intact with his bed, typewriters, and a bull’s-eye target. The building was a frequent hangout of artists including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Fifty years ago Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Acclaimed biographer Barry Miles discusses his new book, Call Me Burroughs: A Life (Twelve, 2014), with John Tytell at the Strand Bookstore in New York City.

The third installment of Akashic's Drug Chronicles series, The Heroin Chronicles, edited by Jerry Stahl, includes stories by Eric Bogosian, Lydia Lunch, Nathan Larson, Ava Stander, and many others. In this video from Open Road Media, Stahl talks about William Burroughs, the difference between an alcoholic and a junkie, and how he selected the pieces for the anthology.

A Man Within, the documentary about Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs that premieres on the PBS series Independent Lens tonight, explores the late writer's fascination with, among many other things, guns. "Burroughs didn't feel at home unless he had a loaded gun by his side."