Poets & Writers Theater

In this Daily Show interview, author Rob Franklin speaks about the themes of race, class, and privilege in his debut novel, Great Black Hope (Summit Books, 2025), with host Josh Johnson.

In this Foreword Reviews interview from their Petit Forward series, Sarah Yahm fields questions about the characters in her debut novel, Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation (Dzanc Books, 2025). Yahm is featured in “First Fiction 2025” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this virtual City Lights Live event, Jon Hickey reads from and talks about his debut novel, Big Chief (Simon & Schuster, 2025), in a conversation with author Tomas Moniz. Hickey is featured in “First Fiction 2025” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Green Apple Books event, Jemimah Wei reads from her debut novel, The Original Daughter (Doubleday, 2025), and talks about her desire to write about two ambitious girls growing up in modern Singapore in a conversation with R. O. Kwon. “What I tell people about this book is that I’ve always thought it of as a love story, but like a really unromantic love story.”

In this BookTrib interview, Maggie Su speaks about how her debut novel, Blob: A Love Story (Harper, 2025), began as a short story and then a play, and her interests in surreal and speculative stories.

In this Green Apple Books event, Karissa Chen reads from her debut novel, Homeseeking (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025), and speaks about how her late grandfather’s experiences during the Chinese Civil War inspired the book in a conversation with Vanessa Hua.

In this Buzz Books virtual event, Cebo Campbell discusses how the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Toni Morrison inspired his debut novel, Sky Full of Elephants (Simon & Schuster, 2024), in a conversation with Simon & Schuster senior editor Olivia Taylor Smith.

“The book is, in many ways, about expectations and change.” In this Fane Productions event, Juli Min reads from her debut novel, Shanghailanders (Spiegel & Grau, 2024), and discusses her choice to begin the novel in the future in Shanghai and how the diverse and multifaceted city is its own character in a conversation with author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan.

In this Books Are Magic event, Kat Tang reads from her debut novel, Five-Star Stranger (Scribner, 2024), and describes her experience revisiting a novel manuscript years after finishing her MFA in a conversation with author Jinwoo Chong.

In this interview, Ferdia Lennon talks about his Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize–winning novel, Glorious Exploits (Henry Holt, 2024), which opens in Sicily in 412 BCE with two characters hatching a plan to direct a production of Euripides’s Medea.

In this virtual event hosted by Prince George’s County Memorial Library System in Maryland, Jiaming Tang reads from his debut novel, Cinema Love (Dutton, 2024), and discusses writing about forbidden queer love and the immigrant experiences that were crucial to his work. Tang is featured in “First Fiction 2024” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch the trailer for My Oxford Year, a film adaptation of the debut novel of the same name by Julia Whelan. The film stars Sofia Carson as Anna, an ambitious American student with a keen interest in poetry who sets off for Oxford University and meets Jamie, played by Corey Mylchreest, a charming local who alters her plans.