Poets & Writers Theater

“I remember what’s important and I make up the rest. That’s what storytelling is all about.” This HBO Original documentary takes a look at the life of legendary poet and activist Nikki Giovanni. The award-winning film is directed and written by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, and includes readings by executive producer Taraji P. Henson.

Watch the trailer for the forthcoming HBO limited series The Sympathizer, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. The series stars Hoa Xuande as a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy forced to flee to the United States near the end of the Vietnam War. The cast also includes Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le, Alan Trong, Ky Duyen, Sandra Oh, and Robert Downey Jr.

Watch the trailer for the HBO series The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the best-selling 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger. The six-episode series stars Rose Leslie and Theo James and premieres in May.

“There is no before. Only now.” Watch this trailer for Station Eleven, an HBO limited series based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel. Adapted by Patrick Somerville, the series stars Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, and Gael García Bernal.

“Remember her name. Isabel Allende.” In this trailer for Isabel: The Intimate Story of Isabel Allende, a three-part biopic miniseries premiering on HBO Max on March 12, the prolific Chilean writer’s life is portrayed from her childhood in Chile to her career as a celebrated and award-winning author.

The Plot Against America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), Philip Roth’s alternative history novel in which Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election and fascist anti-Semitism is on the rise, has been adapted into an HBO television miniseries. The series, directed by Minkie Spiro and adapted by David Simon, stars Ben Cole, Winona Ryder, Morgan Spector, John Turturro, and Zoe Kazan.

Native Son, Richard Wright’s 1940 novel about a young African American man living in poverty in Chicago, has been adapted into a feature film for the third time. The movie is directed by visual artist Rashid Johnson, with a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and stars Sanaa Lathan, KiKi Layne, Elizabeth Marvel, Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, and Ashton Sanders.
 

“This poem is not a cry for help. This poem is not my broken pieces. And we are not done yet.” In this HBO documentary, a group of veterans and active-duty service members come together to write a collaborative poem and turn it into a stage performance. The film is directed by Sareen Hairabedian and coproduced by Jeffrey Wright and David Holbrooke.

Sharp Objects (Shaye Areheart Books, 2006), Gillian Flynn’s debut novel about a reporter who returns to her hometown to investigate a series of murders, has been adapted into an HBO television miniseries. Created by Marti Noxon and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, the series stars Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Matt Craven, Chris Messina, and Elizabeth Perkins.

Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine Books, 1953), has been adapted into a feature film for HBO. Directed by Ramin Bahrani, the film stars Michael B. Jordan as Guy Montag and Michael Shannon as Captain Beatty.

Mrs. Fletcher (Scribner, 2017) by Tom Perrotta—whose novels Election, Little Children, and The Leftovers have previously inspired screen adaptations—has been adapted into an HBO television series. The comedy series stars Kathryn Hahn as Eve Fletcher, a divorcée who has a midlife sexual awakening after her son leaves home for college.

"Is it that bad to write genre?" David Simon, writer and producer of the HBO drama The Wire, speaks with novelist Richard Price about his choice to release his latest book, The Whites (Henry Holt, 2015), under the pseudonym Harry Brandt.

"The Review is based on the idea that highly skillful, intelligent people can write about any subject." Directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi, this documentary, which airs September 29 on HBO, traces the fifty-year history of the New York Review of Books.

The documentary film To Be Heard, which made its debut last November and won a grand jury prize and the audience award at the film festival Doc NYC, follows three teens from the South Bronx whose struggle to change their lives begins when they start to write poetry.