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A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
"Man is a mass of electrified clay!" Percy Shelley wrote a couple hundred years ago. Frances Ashcroft and Denis Noble, professors at the University of Oxford, discuss the science of how ions transmit electricity through the body as well as the more poetic aspects of electricity, including Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, Mary Shelley's inspiration for Frakenstein, and more.
For your weekend viewing pleasure we present this 1963 documentary Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer, produced and directed by Terry Sanders, in which the late science fiction author (who was forty-three when the film was made) shares his thoughts on writing and perseverance: "You've got to be inspired and mad and excited and love it more than anything else in the world!"
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, Kristopher Jansma's debut novel, forthcoming in March from Viking, takes readers around the world—to the rocky edge of the Grand Canyon, the posh hotels of Dubai, the crowded markets of Kumasi, and an abandoned Icelandic writer’s colony—with its elusive narrator and his two friends: the talented but unstable Julian McGann and the beautiful actress, Evelyn Demont.
Blessing the Boats: A Tribute to Lucille Clifton, a celebration of the late poet's life and work on the occasion of the posthumous publication of her Collected Poems by BOA Editions, was held on February 21 and featured readings by poets Sherman Alexie, Tina Chang, Toi Derricotte, Michael Dickman, Timothy Donnelly, Cornelius Eady, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Nick Flynn, Tonya Foster, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Marie Howe, Dante Micheaux, Sharon Olds, and Tracy K. Smith.
"Ants on the Sidewalk," the twenty-sixth episode of the poetry podcast Haiku Chronicles, features a video montage of urban haibun, haiku, and senryu by poets Naia, Deborah P Kolodji, and Gregory Longenecker.
Last month poet Martín Espada spoke with Bill Moyers about how poets "reach out and put our hands on the intangible". A one-time lawyer and advocate, Espada has published more than fifteen books of poems, translations, and essays, including his latest poetry collection, The Trouble Ball (Norton, 2011).
Appearing at Cornell University in 2009, the author reads from "The Starlight on Idaho," a short story originally published in Playboy in 2007. Johnson's latest novel, Train Dreams (FSG), was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
The author and former literary agent offers some tips on how to make it as a writer: "Write what you know" may not be enough! Hodgman is the author of The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All.
"If you've ever tried to make a student loan payment with a credit card and you find out the loan and the credit card are issued by the same bank, I think you'll understand the characters in this book," says Jim Gavin about his debut story collection, Middle Men (Simon & Schuster). For this and other new and noteable books, check out this issue's Page One.
The author of O My Darling and The Folded World talks about her new book, Schroder (Twelve), a lyrical and deeply affecting novel recounting the seven days a father spends on the road with his daughter after kidnapping her during a parental visit.
