Poets & Writers Theater

“What I’m often writing about is the sense of disappointment between how one wishes one would be and how one really is.” A. M. Homes speaks about her new story collection, Days of Awe (Viking, 2018), for Waterstones in London. Homes reads an excerpt from the book in the twentieth episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison, / Part panic closet...” Terrance Hayes reads poems from his new collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Books, 2018), and discusses the origin and inspiration for the book at the 2017 Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Hayes reads more poems from the collection in the twentieth episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast, and is interviewed by Hanif Abdurraqib for the cover profile in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted it to be very clear, all of the ways that slavery has come to leave a lasting legacy on American history, on Ghanaian history, and on many other countries’ histories.” Yaa Gyasi joins host Shad on CBC Radio to speak about exploring slavery and history through the individual characters in her debut novel, Homegoing (Knopf, 2016). Gyasi is featured in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and can be heard in the eighth episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

"It is a plea for the idea that fiction is a way to access or try to access the truth, not a way to escape from it." Alejandro Zambra, recipient of the 2013 Prince Claus Award, speaks about his novel Ways of Going Home (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) and on what writing means to him. Zambra is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and in our original podcast reading from his latest novel, Multiple Choice (Penguin Books, 2016), translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.

"One thing that I had always wanted for this book was that by the time you got to the end of it, you couldn't say that you didn't understand why black people in America are the way they are, or why they might feel the things that they feel—you get to see exactly what steps have led to the current state of racial tension in America." Read more about Yaa Gyasi in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and hear her read from her debut novel, Homegoing (Knopf, 2016), on Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

Rumaan Alam reads from his short story "A Certainty" at an event for the Center for Fiction's literary magazine, The Literarian, alongside Terese Svoboda and Sigrid Nunez. Alam is featured in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and reads from his debut novel, Rich and Pretty (Ecco, 2016), on Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

"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.

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.

"How the real blues claims every inch of the hungry mouth." Tyehimba Jess reads his poem "The Harmonica Lesson" and plays harmonica for the Page Meets Stage reading series in 2010. Jess is featured in Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast, and his new poetry collection, Olio (Wave Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Elegy for a Dead World is a creative-writing video game that explores abandoned worlds inspired by English Romantic poets Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats. Read more about the game's creation in "Writing an Elegy for a Dead World" by Dana Isokawa in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The editors discuss the game in the first episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.