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A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
A selection from Jay Baron Nicorvo's debut collection, Deadbeat (Four Way Books, 2012), is paired with an appearance of the book's central character, Deadbeat. Read Nicorvo's "The Art of Reading John Berryman" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"At the Hurston/Wright Foundation we don't believe the glass is half empty or half full, we believe that it is always overflowing—with ideas, with vision, and inspiration to serve black writers." President emeritus and cofounder Marita Golden introduces honorees at the thirteenth annual Legacy Awards. Golden speaks about the organization in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Actor and author Nick Offerman reflects on Scotland, whisky, and poetry, and recites the poem "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns. More of Offerman's reflections can be read in his comedic memoir, Paddle Your Own Canoe (Dutton Books, 2013).
"It is the Glad Season / Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner." At the annual White House Christmas celebration in 2005, Maya Angelou shared a poem written for the holiday and in the spirit of peace.
"So rarely the body discovered as the body is." The award-winning poet and cofounder of the Third Wave Foundation in New York reads three of her poems. Martin's new poetry collection Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life (Nightboat Books, 2014) is featured in Page One in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"Poetry is condensed language with an internal music." Poet, artist, and literary translator Sholeh Wolpé speaks about how growing up and living within different cultures has influenced her writing.
"You can't say anything qualitatively about the imagination being a great and nurturing place or a dangerous and terrible place—it's all that stuff." Debut novelist and Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle talks about his book, Wolf in White Van (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), which was longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction.
"'How does it feel to be you?' That's the ultimate question for a fiction writer." The novelist speaks about his early influences and how he writes his characters. O'Nan's West of Sunset (Viking, 2015) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Saeed Jones recites a poem from his poetry collection, Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press, 2014), at the Dodge Poetry Festival in October. Jones is one of the debut poets featured in "Breaking Into the Silence" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"Don't shy away from using words, words are a very, very important form of expression... in whichever language." Keith Phetlhe, a poet from Botswana, speaks about how poetry has been an influential part of his life and culture, and performs Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 in Tswana.
