Poets & Writers Theater

In this interactive Narrative 4 writing workshop, Deborah Taffa, author of Whiskey Tender (Harper, 2024), leads participants through practical exercises on self-discovery, shares exemplary work, and discusses how a memoir can answer the question: “Who am I?” Taffa says: “We’re telling people what we’ve learned in the time that has transpired between when we were that character on the page and who we are now.”

In this Left Bank Books event, Rebe Huntman talks about her journey to Cuba following her mother’s passing, which inspired her debut memoir, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle (Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2025). For more from Huntman, read her installation of our Ten Questions series.

For this Conduit Club event hosted by Max Porter in London, Egyptian Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad discusses his debut memoir, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Knopf, 2025), and reflects on the “derangement of language” while reporting the War on Terror and the threats faced by journalists in Gaza today.

In this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Miwa Messer, book critic and editor Sarah Chihaya talks about her debut memoir, Bibliophobia (Random House, 2025), and the concept of “life ruiner” books that “not only make you want to keep reading, but make you read the world around you differently.”

In this 2024 LBC Full Disclosure podcast interview with James O’Brien, author and playwright Hanif Kureishi talks about the life-changing fall which led him to write his memoir, Shattered (Ecco, 2025), a mix of dispatches from his hospital bed and his reassembled new life.

“This book is not about blame, it’s about understanding.” In this Enoch Pratt Free Library event in Baltimore, Lee Hawkins speaks about the history and research he encountered in the writing process of his debut memoir, I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free (Amistad, 2025). Hawkins’s memoir is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Center for Fiction event, Padma Viswanathan, author of Like Every Form of Love: A Memoir of Friendship and True Crime (7.13 Books, 2024), and Tracy O’Neill, author of Woman of Interest (HarperOne, 2024), discuss their memoirs and how they broke genre conventions to craft their stories.

In this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Miwa Messer, author KB Brookins speaks about gender identity, resiliency and joy in the face of adversity, nonlinear storytelling, and their debut memoir, Pretty (Knopf, 2024).

In this Magers & Quinn Booksellers event in Minneapolis, Carvell Wallace reads from his debut memoir, Another Word for Love (MCD, 2024), and talks about finding strength in his communities and ancestors, and the transformative power of memory in a conversation with Junauda Petrus.

In this 60 Minutes interview, Salman Rushdie speaks with Anderson Cooper about surviving an attempt on his life in 2022 and detailing the experience in his new memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (Random House, 2024).

“When you see injustice, you have to bite back.” In this Books Are Magic event, Julia Lee reads from her memoir, Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America (Henry Holt, 2023), and joins author Hua Hsu for a conversation about healing from family trauma, Asian American rage and shame, and lessons learned from teaching literature to college students.

In this live event at Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Curtis Chin reads from his debut memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant (Little, Brown, 2023), and speaks about growing up as a Chinese American son of restaurateurs in Detroit with author Dominic Lim. For more from Chin, read his installment of our Ten Questions series.

“I had to pretend I was someone else writing about me to gain some distance from myself because part of the subject of this book is how difficult it is for us to know ourselves.” Viet Thanh Nguyen talks about his family’s struggles and traumas, and the challenges of writing his new book, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial (Grove Atlantic, 2023), in this PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown. Nguyen’s memoir is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Safiya Sinclair reads from her debut memoir, How to Say Babylon (37 Ink, 2023), and speaks with poet Airea D. Matthews for this event recorded at the Free Library of Philadelphia. A profile of Sinclair by Renée H. Shea is featured in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Eirinie Carson talks about her debut memoir, The Dead Are Gods (Melville House, 2023), which was inspired by the sudden loss of a close friend, in this conversation with author Savala Nolan at the Booksmith bookstore in San Francisco. Carson is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this short video, Andrew Leland walks through the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, and introduces his debut book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight (Penguin Press, 2023), in which he writes about his experience with vision loss. Leland is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was born to tell my story and the story of my people, to make everyone aware that we exist still, that we breathe still.” In this virtual Charis Circle event, Leah Myers reads from her debut memoir, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity (Norton, 2023), and discusses how Native folklore informed the structure of her book in a conversation with author Kung Li Sun. Myers is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was in Los Angeles for less than a month before I got scouted for a cult.” In this Zibby’s Bookstore event, Kate Flannery speaks with Amanda Montell and reads from her debut memoir, Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles (Henry Holt, 2023), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 92NY virtual reading, Lynn Melnick speaks about how Dolly Parton’s songs helped shape the structure of her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022), in a conversation with poet Deborah Paredez.

In this Books Are Magic event, Greg Marshall reads from his debut memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, 2023), and discusses what inspires his writing with author Chloé Cooper Jones. Marshall is featured in Literary MagNet in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.