Poets & Writers Theater

“I love when a character in a novel, or in a story, or even in a poem, experiences a sense of change that they cannot come back from.” In this Books Are Magic event, Aria Aber reads from her debut novel, Good Girl (Hogarth, 2025), and discusses themes of shame, self-destruction, and coming of age as an artist in a conversation with Leslie Jamison. For more from Aber, read her installment of our Ten Questions series.

“In each of my close relationships, I feel like I get to be a different version of myself.” In this Books Are Magic event, Lilly Dancyger speaks with Leslie Jamison about how she tackled writing about her closest friendships in her first essay collection, First Love: Essays on Friendship (Dial Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this interview for the Otherppl With Brad Listi podcast, Leslie Jamison discusses important relationships throughout her life and how she sought to capture them in her memoir, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (Little, Brown, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

For this LIVE From NYPL event, award-winning author Vauhini Vara reads from her short story collection, This Is Salvaged (Norton, 2023), and discusses exploring the intimacy of relationships between children, parents, friends, siblings, neighbors, and lovers in a conversation with novelist and essayist Leslie Jamison.

“Before we go any further together, me with my lanterns, you following close behind, light flickering on both of our faces, I want to be clear about something: This isn’t a tell-all.” Maggie Smith reads from her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Atria/One Signal, 2023), and speaks to Leslie Jamison about the writing process in this Books Are Magic event held at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn, New York.

“In the summer of 1929, after completing his freshman year at Harvard, James Agee headed west to spend a few months working as a migrant farm hand,” reads Leslie Jamison from her essay collection Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019) in this 2019 Harvard University event with writer and critic James Wood.

“There’s always going to be something to say about the push-pull that New York City exerts on its inhabitants,” says Sari Botton, editor of the revised edition of Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York (Seal Press, 2021), in this Books Are Magic virtual event with author Isaac Fitzgerald and contributors to the anthology Leslie Jamison, Lisa Ko, Emily Raboteau, and Rosie Schaap.

“I wanted to find a way to write about people that felt guided by a spirit of appreciation and empathy.” Leslie Jamison speaks about the ethical complexities involved in nonfiction writing at a 2017 talk at Claremont McKenna College. Jamison’s second essay collection, Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Leslie Jamison reads her essay “The Broken Heart of James Agee” from The Empathy Exams (Graywolf Press, 2014) for a reading series hosted by the Center for Documentary Studies and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Jamison speaks about her new book, The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath (Little, Brown, 2018), in “The Infinite World” by Michele Filgate in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.