Poets & Writers Theater

“If the only thing we can give to each other is ourselves, we better do it. Now.” In this inaugural Speak Now series event hosted by Columbia University School of the Arts, Claudia Rankine reads from her work-in-progress “Triage” and discusses political censorship in higher education and the importance of literature in crises in a conversation with Sarah Cole.

“[Los Angeles is] part of an international community. The city has allowed tremendous growth for me, in terms of its cultural outlets, from libraries, great cinema, dance, orchestra, interesting mixes of people.... I see myself as a global citizen and a global writer.” Will Alexander, winner of the 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize, talks about the influence the city of Los Angeles has had on his relationship with language and writing.

“The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins.” Young-Ha Kim delivers a TEDx Talk about all children beginning as artists, novel writing as a process of composing one sentence after another, and the value of a world in which everyone creates art, whether in public or in private. Kim’s story collection Diary of a Murderer (Mariner Books, 2019), translated from the Korean by Krys Lee, is featured in Page One in the May/June 2019 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Stories should not protect us, stories should expose us...” Israeli author David Grossman, who received the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for his novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Jonathan Cape, 2017) with his translator Jessica Cohen, talks about how all stories are multilayered and some can even trap us in this 92Y video.

“It was still the last frontier when I arrived in 1951. It was a wide-open city.” In this 2015 video, Lawrence Ferlinghetti recalls his early days in San Francisco and speaks about the changing life of the city. Ferlinghetti died at the age of 101 on February 22, 2021. An interview with the legendary poet and founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers is featured in the March/April 2007 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted to find a way to write about people that felt guided by a spirit of appreciation and empathy.” Leslie Jamison speaks about the ethical complexities involved in nonfiction writing at a 2017 talk at Claremont McKenna College. Jamison’s second essay collection, Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 2009 interview with poet Elizabeth Spires, former U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall reads poems and speaks about the writing life. For more Hall, read “Turning Time Around: A Profile of Donald Hall” by contributor John Freeman from the November/December 2014 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Hall passed away on June 23, 2018 at the age of eighty-nine.

Carl Phillips gives a craft talk on poems by Thom Gunn, francine j. harris, and Louise Glück at the 2017 Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Phillips’s most recent poetry collection, Wild Is the Wind (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), is featured in Page One in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Honestly I think that the reason his head was in my brain was because of that hair metal band Tesla...” Samantha Hunt reveals the inspiration behind her second novel, The Invention of Everything Else (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), which fictionalizes the last days of inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla’s life. Hunt’s first story collection, The Dark Dark (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Min Kym talks about the life experiences that inspired her debut memoir, Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung (Crown Publishing Group, 2017), and plays “Méditation” from the opera Thaïs composed by Jules Massenet on her violin. Kym’s book is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The thing when you write about pop culture—especially pop culture that you’re interested in—that you have to avoid, is just saying ‘isn’t this cool?’ again and again...I realized that I needed to put myself into it.” Elena Passarello talks about writing creative nonfiction and reads from her first book, Let Me Clear My Throat (Sarabande Books, 2012). Passarello’s Animals Strike Curious Poses (Sarabande Books, 2017) is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Ideally, you’re trying to get your eye as close to the text as you can.” At the 2012 Summer Literary Seminars, author Molly Antopol speaks with Graywolf Press publisher Fiona McCrae about editing and acquiring manuscripts.

“There is no perfect ethical status/identity that you exist in.” Zadie Smith and Jeffrey Eugenides discuss their own approaches to writing and what they've learned from their experiences at the 2016 New Yorker Festival.

“Understand we have never seen an apple, so we are completely free from apples.” In this 2014 video of the first PEN DIY series event, Natalie Diaz breaks down five personal steps to writing about family, and discusses her poetry with Mike Albo.

"In a public library, surrounded by all these books, I felt very much at home." Imbolo Mbue talks about her love of public libraries, reading Toni Morrison's 1977 novel, Song of Solomon, for the first time, and her experience writing her debut novel, Behold the Dreamers (Random House, 2016). Read more about Mbue in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and listen to her read from her debut novel 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.

"I want to be able to have some impact on the Nigerian youth, and I want to be able to go back home and do something inspiring..." Chigozie Obioma talks about the response to his debut novel, The Fishermen (Little, Brown, 2015), which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and won the 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

Jhumpa Lahiri talks with Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante's novels, about Ferrante, literature, translation, and writing at the Center for Jewish History. Lahiri, who is featured in the the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, has a new memoir, In Other Words (Knopf, 2016), which is translated from the Italian by Goldstein. For more from Lahiri and Goldstein, listen to the latest episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

"​I believe making art—and writing in particular—is not just a literary practice, but also a life practice."​ In this video, the first in a short series, Lidia Yuknavitch shares her experiences, tips, and philosophies on writing from the body, and writing with core metaphors.

"I believe in following your dreams—being incredibly passionate, and being ruthlessly practical about what it takes to get there." Molly Crabapple, whose memoir Drawing Blood (Harper, 2015) features her illustrations, talks about how to succeed as an artist and a creative entrepreneur.