Poets & Writers Theater

“A few years ago I used to tell myself I wanted to marry a cowboy.” In this short film produced by Park Pictures, director Alison Maclean adapts Lydia Davis’s short story about an English professor who fantasizes about a life of adventure. “The Professor” is included in Davis’s collection The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

“Be very patient, even patient with chaos,” Lydia Davis advises writers in this compilation of interviews by Louisiana Channel. Seasoned writers from around the world, including Alaa Al Aswany, Umberto Eco, Richard Ford, Patti Smith, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, also offer their thoughts on how to keep writing.

“Do what you want to do, and don’t worry if it's a little odd or doesn’t fit the market.” Lydia Davis, whose latest collection of stories, Can't and Won't, was released in paperback by Picador in March, offers practical and reassuring advice for writers.

She is anything but jejune. The author of the story collection Can’t and Won’t (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)), Lydia Davis answers questions about reading, writing, and translating Madame Bovary.