Poets & Writers Theater

“When she checked her boarding pass, she was in the middle of the row. There was a man in a blue suit on the aisle, who gave her a big bleached-white smile as he stood to let her past.” In this first installment of Vintage Books’ weekly Storytime series, Booker Prize–winning author Anne Enright reads her short story “The Weight” from her home.

“You’re not really thinking of speaking those words. Often you think about what the most wrong thing to say or do would be, in any given situation.” In this video, Merritt Tierce, a 2019 Whiting Award winner in fiction, reads from her short story “Distributed Denial of Service.”

“Reading Borges, you might catch a glimpse of infinity too.” In this TED-Ed animated short film, the work of Jorge Luis Borges and the way his essays, poems, and stories helped pioneer the magical realism genre is explored by Ilan Stavans. 

“Our swarm, it move like a flock of birds. All these beautiful black people in motion. Moving and shifting with a kind of intelligence.” Rion Amilcar Scott reads from his debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), and speaks with Cinder Barnes and Karl Smith at Montgomery College in Maryland. Scott’s second story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You (Liveright, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Geovani Martins, author of the debut short story collection, The Sun on My Head (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, talks about incorporating slang and the language used by different regions in Rio de Janeiro into his writing, and the new generation of thinkers and artists from the favelas of Brazil.

“I start with a physical feeling. I start with a visual image.” On Late Night With Seth Meyers, Ann Beattie speaks about her writing process, the differences between writing a novel and a short story, and how she came up with the title for her most recent novel, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck (Viking, 2019).

“One of the nice things about conferences like this one is you meet these other human dream incubators. They’ve got their lightning rods up. They’re also receiving these dreams.” Karen Russell speaks to Rich Fahle of PBS Books at the 2019 AWP Conference & Book Fair about the writers who have inspired her, motherhood, and her third story collection, Orange World (Knopf, 2019). Orange World is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I like to have a story be just the essential.” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black (Mariner Books, 2018), talks about why he enjoys the short story form, writing Black characters, and his connection with his students in this Late Night With Seth Meyers interview. 

“If you’ve never read my work before, then I would hope when you read it, that you felt the way you did when you were a kid, that you felt a sense of wonder.” Kelly Link, a 2018 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship recipient, talks about her literary influences and why she incorporates the fantastic into stories of contemporary life.

“This book is very much about climate change…the collision between the human in nature, between internal and external, between domesticity and the wild.” Lauren Groff speaks about her short story collection Florida (Riverhead Books, 2018) with Rich Fahle of PBS Books at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair in Tampa. “Severe Weather in the Sunshine State,” a profile of Groff by Bethane Patrick, is in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“A few years ago I used to tell myself I wanted to marry a cowboy.” In this short film produced by Park Pictures, director Alison Maclean adapts Lydia Davis’s short story about an English professor who fantasizes about a life of adventure. “The Professor” is included in Davis’s collection The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

“If you read it, I hope you enjoy it.” In this short video, Tom Hanks sits in front of his collection of vintage typewriters to announce the publication of his debut short story collection, Uncommon Type: Some Stories (Knopf, 2017).

“They’re unwanted where they come from, they’re unwanted when they arrive, but we have a great tradition of welcoming refugees and turning them into Pulitzer Prize winners.” Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen speaks about his experience as a refugee and the significance of refugees in the United States on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Nguyen’s first short story collection, The Refugees (Grove Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The kids were as close to feral as you can get, like animals dressed up in camouflage jumpsuits.” Kevin Wilson, whose second novel, Perfect Little World (Ecco, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads his short story "An Arc Welder, a Molotov Cocktail, a Bowie Knife."

Filmmakers Gareth Smith and Jenny Lee adapt Kevin Wilson's short story "Worst Case Scenario" in this short film about a man who predicts all the things that can go horribly wrong in a home. Wilson's novel Perfect Little World (Ecco, 2017) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this book trailer for her debut story collection, Know the Mother (Wayne State University Press, 2016), Desiree Cooper reads from "In the Ginza." Cooper is featured in "5 Over 50 Reads" in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“They’re not the same as any other books I’ve read.” Visitors of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, located in Dahl’s home village Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, England, share their love of the author’s classic books and characters.

Rumaan Alam reads from his short story "A Certainty" at an event for the Center for Fiction's literary magazine, The Literarian, alongside Terese Svoboda and Sigrid Nunez. Alam is featured in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and reads from his debut novel, Rich and Pretty (Ecco, 2016), on Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

"The promise and the danger of a short story is that it can be perfect." At the 2013 New Yorker Festival, Junot Díaz and Karen Russell speak about the unique challenges of writing short stories.

"As a writer, I love the irresponsibility of the short story.... There's something beautifully free and single gesture about writing a short story." Tessa Hadley, author of the new novel, The Past (Harper, 2016), and whose work appears in The Penguin Book of the British Short Story (Penguin, 2015), talks about her experience writing both short stories and novels.