A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.

Patti Smith on Creativity

"Every human being has a creative impulse, and we all have the right to exercise this creative impulse." At the 2012 Louisiana Literature Festival, Patti Smith, whose new memoir, M Train, will be released on October 6 by Knopf, talks about creativity and what inspires her to write.

Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff reads an excerpt of his short story "All Ahead of Them" accompanied by his son's jazz band, the San Francisco Repertory Jazz Quartet. Wolff was presented the National Medal of Arts by President Obama last month for his contributions as an author and educator.

Ellen Bryant Voigt

“It’s all failure in the making of art.” Poet Ellen Bryant Voigt, recipient of a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship, talks about a poem’s inevitable failure, the exhilaration of writing, and the challenge of artistic reinvention.

Expanding Voices

Oregon's poet laureate Peter Sears introduces his project Expanding Voices, which aims to provide more opportunities for poets in Oregon from diverse global communities to share their work and heritage.

Abnormal State of Writing

"There are two kinds of writing: One is very passionate and impulsive, and it can be extremely emotional. Then the other writing is more cool and maybe classical and more carefully shaped.” Joyce Carol Oates, whose memoir The Lost Landscape was published this month by Ecco, describes the different states of mind that have inspired her work.

Rigoberto González

"My father wanted me to become a boxer, my mother wanted me to become an engineer, and I think I found a way to mix those two visions together—in poetry." Rigoberto González, recipient of the 2014 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, is featured in "The Way of the Workshop" in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

How to Laugh

Joe Meno reads seventh grader Tasia A.'s story "How to Laugh" as part of nonprofit 826CHI's Video Project. Meno's latest novel, Marvel and a Wonder, is out this month from Akashic Books.

The Wake

Before Paul Kingsnorth's debut novel became a bestseller in the U.K., he posted this book trailer on Unbound, a crowdfunding website for publishing, to ask for pledges. The Wake was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, the first crowdfunded book to make the list, and was published by Graywolf this month.

C. K. Williams

In this episode of "Poets in Person" from the Cortland Review, C. K. Williams introduces his family and workspace, and reflects on his unexpected journey into poetry. The prizewinning poet passed away on September 20 at the age of seventy-eight.

The Poet's Role

"Part of the role of poetry and poets is to force ourselves past the common ways of looking at things." Jane Hirshfield, whose poetry collection The Beauty was released by Knopf in March, speaks about the responsibility of the poet in America today.

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