Poets & Writers Theater

“Writing memoir is the ultimate control of my story.” Sandra Gail Lambert talks to author Michele Leavitt about her own motivations for writing memoir, and the challenges that accompany it. Lambert, author of the debut memoir, A Certain Loneliness (University of Nebraska Press, 2018), is featured in “Outsiders on the Inside” by Michele Sharpe in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness (Free Press, 2012), Susannah Cahalan’s memoir about her experience as a young journalist struggling with the diagnosis of a rare and mysterious neurological disease, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Gerard Barrett, the film stars Richard Armitage, Thomas Mann, Chloë Grace Moretz, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tyler Perry, and Jenny Slate.

In this TED Talk, Casey Gerald speaks about a poignant day in his childhood and how those events altered his thoughts on belief, faith, and doubt. Gerald is the author of the debut memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here (Riverhead Books, 2018), and is featured in “The Genre of Resistance” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Boy Erased is a film based on Garrard Conley’s 2016 coming-of-age memoir of the same name. Lucas Hedges stars as a young man who is forced by his fundamental Baptist parents, played by Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, to attend a gay conversion therapy program. The film is written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also costars as the program’s head therapist.

“I wanted to learn how to write English and learn how to tell a story so I could communicate the experiences that I did not see in history books....” Clemantine Wamariya talks about storytelling and her debut memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After (Crown, 2018), which she cowrote with Elizabeth Weil.

Gregory Pardlo talks about the difference between writing poetry and creative nonfiction, and the universality of storytelling in this interview with Rich Fahle at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair in Tampa. Pardlo’s debut memoir, Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America (Knopf, 2018), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. 

“Reading really saved my life in a way that people probably will never be able to understand.” Anthony Ray Hinton, author of the memoir, The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (St. Martin’s Press, 2018), speaks about starting the only known book club on death row and the power of reading.

“I found this liberation from the limitation…” In this Asia Society video, Xiaolu Guo explains why writing in English, her second language, is so freeing. Guo is the winner of the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in autobiography for her memoir, Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China (Grove Press, 2017).

“My parents raised me in a white-sided saltbox house, the sort children draw in crayon. Years before we lived there, it had been cut in half and moved across town. We never learned why.” Jeannie Vanasco, who is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House Books, 2017), at the University of Chicago.

“As an English language writer, I’m not often asked to stretch culturally...” Eileen Myles talks about writing and nationalism, and the importance of international events like the Festival Neue Literatur. Myles’s debut memoir, Afterglow (a dog memoir) (Grove Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Mike Scalise reads from his debut memoir, The Brand New Catastrophe (Sarabande Books, 2017), at the Sunday Salon series in New York City. Scalise is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s okay to be in flux and figure it out, and take your time to figure it out.” Follow iO Tillett Wright through the streets of New York City to Joshua Tree in California leading up to the launch of his debut memoir, Darling Days (Ecco, 2016).

The Glass Castle (Scribner, 2005), the best-selling debut memoir by Jeannette Walls about her childhood in a nomadic family dealing with dysfunction and poverty, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson, and Naomi Watts.

“What is a connection made up of when two people have incredible inequality between them?” Michelle Kuo speaks about her debut memoir, Reading With Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship (Random House, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Roxane Gay reads part of “The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion” from her essay collection, Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial, 2014). Her debut memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was not at my mother’s side when she took her last breath.” Sherman Alexie reads from his debut memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (Little, Brown, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I think it’s really important for writers to understand themselves as artists.” At the 92nd Street Y, longtime friends Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus read from their work and have a conversation about their life experiences and writing processes.

“In literature you get these magical moments when you can actually feel yourself to be somebody else...and those moments I think are incredibly important for the development of a society because they’re expansive moments.” Hisham Matar, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in autobiography for his debut memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between (Random House, 2016), talks about the role literature plays in creating social change.

Min Kym talks about the life experiences that inspired her debut memoir, Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung (Crown Publishing Group, 2017), and plays “Méditation” from the opera Thaïs composed by Jules Massenet on her violin. Kym’s book is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I just really wanted my words back—it was the one thing I lost, and it was the one thing I wanted back.” In the book trailer for her debut memoir, Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life (Ecco, 2017), Christine Hyung-Oak Lee describes experiencing a stroke and how writing contributed to her recovery.