Poets & Writers Theater

Watch the trailer for Klara and the Sun, a film adaptation of the 2021 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. Directed by Taika Waititi, the film stars Jenna Ortega as an “Artificial Friend” who is purchased by a mother (Amy Adams) for her ailing, heartbroken teenage daughter (Mia Tharia).

“It’s the most personal novel I’ve ever written.” In this Penguin Random House Spring Book & Author Festival virtual event, Marlon James talks about his desire to present the world he grew up in through an exploration of queer life in Jamaica in the eighties and nineties in his new novel, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books, 2026), which is featured in Page One in the September/October 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Live Talks Los Angeles event, author and chef Eddie Huang speaks with Ottessa Moshfegh about his debut novel, Come Undone (One World, 2026), and his love for defying genres through autofiction. 

In this virtual reading and conversation, Poets & Writers Magazine senior editor India Lena González introduces the five debut authors featured in “First Fiction 2026”: P.C. Verrone, author of Rabbit, Fox, Tar (Catapult, 2026); M Lin, author of The Memory Museum (Graywolf Press, 2026); Joe Bond, author of Hope House (Hub City Press, 2026); Amanda Rizkalla, author of Hungered (Henry Holt, 2026); and Devyn Defoe, author of Burnside (Astra House, 2026).

In this Oprah’s Book Club event, Douglas Stuart talks about his novel John of John (Grove Press, 2026), which he wrote over the course of six years after spending weeks researching the Outer Hebrides Isles on the coast of Scotland and interviewing their locals. For more from Stuart, read his installment of our Ten Questions series.

In this interview with PBS NewsHour, Dave Eggers talks about his nonprofit work, including the founding of the community art and education center Art + Water and the youth writing program 826 National, and the themes of art and friendship in his new novel, Contrapposto (Knopf, 2026).

In this video, author and musician Kae Tempest talks about the core themes of forgiveness and atonement in his second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking (Jonathan Cape, 2026), and transmuting his musical background into prose in this conversation with Dua Lipa for the Service95 Book Club series.

In this interview with the Hindu, Amitav Ghosh talks about his writing over four decades and the making of his latest novel, Ghost-Eye (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026), which is featured in Page One in the July/August 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was writing this book that was kind of longing for the city that I actually lived in.” In this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Miwa Messer, Natalie Adler talks about the loneliness she felt in New York City during the pandemic and how it inspired her to write her debut novel, Waiting on a Friend (Hogarth, 2026), which takes place at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1984.

In this video, Lillian Li talks about her desire to write about friendships and friendship breakups, and the experience of growing up in a hypercompetitive Chinese American community in her second novel, Bad Asians (Henry Holt, 2026), for this Politics and Prose event with Angie Kim.

In this Penguin Random House video, Andy Weir talks about how his novels often emerge from daydreaming, and the origins of his 2021 novel, Project Hail Mary, which has been adapted into a film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and starring Ryan Gosling.

Watch the trailer for the television series Vladimir, adapted from the 2022 novel of the same name by Julia May Jonas. Starring Rachel Weiss and Leo Woodall, the eight-episode series follows a writer and professor who becomes obsessed with a new colleague as her life starts to unravel.

In this Gays Reading podcast interview with host Jason Blitman, T Kira Madden talks about the events that led to writing her debut novel, Whidbey (Mariner Books, 2026), and how exploring different points of view of a crime offered new insights. A profile of Madden appears in the March/April 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this New York Public Library event, Isaac Fitzgerald moderates a discussion with authors Angela Flournoy, Katie Kitamura, and Sebastian Castillo about their novels published in 2025, the current state of literary fiction, and what challenges them to write the next book.

In this Waterstones interview, Maggie O’Farrell talks about the process of cowriting the screenplay for the film adaptation of her novel Hamnet (Knopf, 2020) with director Chloé Zhao. “The film sits alongside the book, and that’s exactly as it should be,” says O’Farrell.

Watch the trailer for The Thing With Feathers directed by Dylan Southern and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. A film adaptation of the novel Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter (Graywolf Press, 2016), the film follows a grieving widow who is greeted by an unwanted house guest while struggling to raise two young sons.

In this Politics and Prose event, Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo reads from her debut novel, The Tiny Things Are Heavier (Bloomsbury, 2025), and talks about how writing a coming-of-age story helped her understand her own experiences in migrating to the United States from Nigeria in a conversation with Gbenga Adesina.

In this CBS Mornings segment with cohost Gayle King, Oprah Winfrey announces her latest book club pick, A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf, 2025), and speaks with author Megha Majumbar about the themes of her novel and how becoming a parent changed how she viewed her characters. Read Majumbar’s installment of our Ten Questions series.

In this CBS Boston interview, R. F. Kuang talks about her latest novel, Katabasis (Harper Voyager, 2025), and its forthcoming television series adaptation, her connection to Sylvia Plath and the city of Boston, and the importance of buying from independent bookstores.

“I knew I was going to write about tech, but I did think of it first as a novel about labor.” Elaine Castillo talks about exploring the intersection of virtual reality and the Filipino American diaspora for her second novel, Moderation (Viking, 2025), and how Jane Austen’s novels, including Pride and Prejudice, informed her process in this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Miwa Messer.