Poets & Writers Theater

In this episode of the Fashion Neurosis podcast hosted by Bella Freud, Ocean Vuong speaks about how the Japanese concept of negative space, ma, influences his approach to the line in both prose and poetry, and why he wants to write eight books in total by the end of his career.

In this 2012 Library of Congress event, László Krasznahorkai reads from his novel Satantango (New Directions, 2013), translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes, and speaks about the evolution of his writing style and the relationship between author and translator. Krasznahorkai is the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature.

In this Green Apple Books event, Catherine Lacey talks about the breakup that led to her writing The Möbius Book (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025) and her decision to combine nonfiction and fiction into this hybrid book in a conversation with Rita Bullwinkel. “It’s a different kind of grief,” says Lacey. “It’s not just the sadness of missing someone, but it’s also the sadness of missing yourself.”

“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.

In this Writers on Writing event at the Newberry Library in Chicago, authors Carmen Maria Machado and Megan Stielstra engage in a conversation about their creative processes, the evolution of their works, and their insights into the art of storytelling.

In this interview from The Tamron Hall Show, the best-selling author of the romance novels Beach Read (Berkley, 2020), Book Lovers (Berkley, 2022), and Great Big Beautiful Life (Berkley, 2025) talks about her writing process, approaches to character development, and exploration of themes, such as love, loss, and self-discovery.

“If writing has rules, they are exactly the same as the rules of living.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Rachel Cusk reads from her latest novel, Parade (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), and talks about her approach to writing, which includes focusing on the interplay of instinct, discipline, and authenticity.

In this video from the keynote of A Writing Room’s 2022 retreat, best-selling author Anne Lamott speaks about the discipline needed to write and reflects on writing as a spiritual and moral practice grounded in truth telling.

In this 2021 virtual craft talk hosted by the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, author and professor Victoria Redel speaks about narrative structure and the use of collage in fiction and how fragmented, nonlinear storytelling can deepen emotional impact and thematic complexity.

In this virtual event for the Brooklyn Rail’s New Social Environment series, Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir Reading the Waves (Riverhead Books, 2025) and speaks to Porochista Khakpour about the process of rearranging fragments of writing.

At this Japanese Literature Night event hosted by the Japan Society, Keiichiro Hirano delivers his keynote speech titled “The Question of Selfhood” in which he shares how his upbringing in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka during the eighties and nineties inspired his interest in literature and how he attempts to tackle questions of the individual’s place in modernity through his novels.

In this Jaipur Literature Festival event moderated by Nadini Nair, novelists David Nicholls, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Geetanjali Shree, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Andrew O’Hagan discuss their respective writing processes, as well as how the novel voice can be used to interrogate the histories established by colonial powers.

“I think each project requires its own form, and the story itself demands the form.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Lauren Groff talks about how her novel Matrix (Riverhead Books, 2021) began as a thought experiment around toxic masculinity, and reflects on the ways fiction can challenge patriarchal storytelling traditions.

In this interview for The Thread documentary series, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen talks about his childhood experiences as a refugee and overcoming trauma, his parents’ complicated reaction to his writing career, and how storytelling and writing changed his life from an early age. Read about Nguyen’s essay collection To Save and Destroy: Writing as an Other (Belknap Press, 2025) in our Best Books series.

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 Penguin Random House video, Lev Grossman, author of The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur (Viking, 2024), and Dan Jones, author of Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King (Viking, 2024), share insights into their writing and research processes.

In this Off Book video for the Richland Library in South Carolina, R. F. Kuang speaks about her research process, the importance of reading literature with diverse characters, and the first time she accidentally got caught for damaging a library book. “I freaked out. I thought I was going to be banned from libraries forever,” Kuang says.

In this Green Apple Books event, Atlantic senior editor Jeremy Gordon reads from his debut novel, See Friendship (Harper Perennial, 2025), and talks about the decision to write a book of fiction amidst a career in journalism in a conversation with New Yorker staff writer and author Jay Caspian Kang.

In this Late Night With Seth Meyers interview, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the process of writing Dream Count (Knopf, 2025), her first novel in ten years, and how turning to poetry and the memories of her mother inspired her. “I have always felt that poetry nurtures your language and I read it to remind me of the magic of language,” she says.

In this Louisiana Channel interview, Mohsin Hamid talks about how his writing process has changed over the years with each novel he’s written, the importance of form and structure to a reader’s understanding of narrative, and the responsibility of writers to establish and shape reality. “We talk about reality as though it is real, but we are aware that we are creating it,” he says.