Poets & Writers Theater

In this 2022 Louisiana Channel interview, Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata talks about the imaginary worlds of her childhoood, her writing process involving character sketches, and the origin of her otherworldly stories. “My world of daydreams or the power of stories saved me, so I was able to survive. And this same strength is in my protagonists,” says Murata.

In this Louisiana Channel video, Russian poet and journalist Maria Stepanova offers her advice for young writers to look forward to something unknown and to be able to “look into the future with some degree of hope.”

In this 2022 virtual reading hosted by the Frostburg Center for Literary Arts in Maryland, Elizabeth Arnold reads a selection of poems from her books, including her most recent, Skeleton Coast (Flood Editions, 2017), and discusses dream poems and her writing career. Arnold died at the age of sixty-six on February 24, 2024.

In this PEN America event from their 2022 World Voices Festival, authors Jean Guerrero, Omar El Akkad, Ousman Umar, and Yuri Herrera come together for a conversation about border and migrant narratives, the current global crises of displacement, and how literature tells the stories of those often ignored or hidden.

In this installment of the Creative Writing and Critical Thought series, novelist Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies (Riverhead, 2021), speaks with professor Emily Apter, author of Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (Verso Books, 2013), about the complexity and consequences of translation and the paradoxes and power of language. The series is cosponsored by New Literary History and the Center for Fiction.

Christopher Soto, author of Diaries of a Terrorist (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), talks about his origins as a poet growing up in Los Angeles and the connection between poetry and activism in this installment of the Line / Break series hosted by Copper Canyon Press publicist Ryo Yamaguchi. “Making Space: A Farewell Ritual for the Debut Book” by Soto appears in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Books aren’t dangerous. At least, they’re not dangerous to those of us who want to create an equitable and just society,” says author Ibram X. Kendi in this Washington Post video which takes a look at the history and common themes of banned books in America.

“Read the books they don’t want you to. That’s where the good stuff is,” says LeVar Burton in this video from The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on some of the latest banned children’s books which include themes on race and racism, and LGBTQIA+ characters.

“Science fiction is a reminder that not everyone had access to their history,” says Norwegian artist Sandra Mujinga who draws on science fiction in her artistic practice, which includes installation and video art, for this Louisiana Channel interview. “It’s so important to keep imagining other realities,” says Mujinga.

“I live in a hotel / with no rooms, just a lobby and lifts / leading to experiences.” In this video, Jon Sands reads Brenda Shaughnessy’s poem “Karaoke Realness at the Love Hotel” for the Ours Poetica series, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.

“Everything that we think is shining is actually burning.” In this Button Poetry video, Keyma Flight reads her poem “Cigarette Women” at the 2022 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam in Baltimore, Maryland.

In this 92NY virtual reading, Lynn Melnick speaks about how Dolly Parton’s songs helped shape the structure of her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022), in a conversation with poet Deborah Paredez.

“Speak to me; speak into me, / the wind said, when I woke this morning, Let’s see what happens.” In this PBS NewsHour video, Carl Phillips reads a selection of poems from his Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022), and speaks to Jeffrey Brown about the intimacy and power of poetry. Phillips is the recipient of the 2021 Jackson Poetry Prize.

“My whole task in writing a book is to get closer; to hear what I’m hearing more clearly and to see what I’m seeing more clearly.” In this conversation for the Reading the Room podcast, Amina Cain speaks about her book A Horse at Night: On Writing (Dorothy, a Publishing Project, 2022) and her creative process with host Jaylen Lopez. 

National Book Award nominees Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), and Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown, 2021), discuss the convergences and divergences of rewriting shared memory across genres in this 2022 National Book Foundation event moderated by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.

“Tell the law nothin of substance / tell the people everything you can.” In this Button Poetry video, Darius Simpson reads his poem “The Role of the Artist,” which appears in his collection Never Catch Me (Button Poetry, 2022).

“All the books I’ve written in the past were books that I decided to write suddenly while I was writing something else.” In this London Review Bookshop conversation, French writer Édouard Louis speaks about his writing process and discovering the parts of his mother’s life he did not know for his new memoir, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), with translator and novelist Tash Aw.

In this New York Public Library event, Cullman Center fellow Hua Hsu reads from his debut memoir, Stay True (Doubleday, 2022), and speaks about writing through grief with Ken Chen. Hsu is the winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in memoir or autobiography.

Watch this virtual multilingual reading of poetry in translation presented by Words Without Borders in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Enjoy poetry in Arabic, French, Malay, Spanish, and English, with readings by poet Jeannette Clariond and translator Samantha Schnee, poet Zahid M. Naser and translator Pauline Fan, poet Samira Negrouche, and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid.

In this London Review Bookshop event, Fernanda Melchor reads from her novel Paradais (New Directions, 2022), translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes, and discusses her work and signature writing style with author Nicole Flattery.