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In this Books Are Magic video, Amanda Hess reads from her debut memoir, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age (Doubleday, 2025), and speaks with Wesley Morris about her experiences using the internet for information and support during her pregnancy. Hess is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2025” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Chloé Caldwell reads from her second memoir, Trying (Graywolf Press, 2025), in this Green Apple Books event with Ariel Gore and Mia Arias Tsang in which they speak about the meaning of failure, the nuances of writing about relationships, and the process of representing queerness on the page. Caldwell’s book is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Think of an ordinary object you see almost every day: a chipped coffee mug, a frayed doormat, or the traffic light you always catch red. Write an essay that treats this object as if it were a silent witness to one chapter of your life. Give this object a voice and allow it to narrate this portion of your history in fragments, in terms of what it has seen you gain, what it has seen you lose, and the small, private moments it holds for you. Allow the object’s “voice” to reveal something about you that you rarely admit to others.
After an unexpected split from her longtime agent, an author reconnects with her sense of calling and remembers who she writes for: herself.
Essays by debut authors Sarah Aziza, Erika J. Simpson, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Amanda Hess, and Samina Najmi as well as excerpts from their books.
Write a sparrow poem, a story about the loss of self during a period of social upheaval, or a series of vignettes that look back on several past jobs you’ve had.
A new nonfiction series from Ig Publishing encourages authors to reflect on the films that have transformed their lives.
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books, including Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa and Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice by Rachel Kolb.
The new editor in chief of Ploughshares discusses her vision for expanding the journal’s digital format and its community.
“I needed time away from text to indulge in paintings and drawings and collage art. I spent a lot of days in art galleries mulling over my memories and the text I was writing.” —Raymond Antrobus, author of The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound
