Poets & Writers Theater

In this recorded event, Terrance Hayes, Claudia Rankine, and Ocean Vuong, acclaimed authors and professors at New York University’s Creative Writing Program, read from their work and participate in a conversation together for a packed audience at NYU Skirball. Rankine is the recipient of the 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize.

In this video, finalists for the 2022 National Book Award in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translated literature, and young people’s literature read excerpts from their honored works. The event, hosted by writer Saraciea J. Fennell, is presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation and the NYU Creative Writing Program.

“Would you agree it’s possible to be both enlightened and in the dark?” For the 2019 Blaney Lecture, an annual lecture on contemporary poetry and poetics created by the Academy of American Poets, Terrance Hayes presents “Survey of an American Century” and reflects on the last century of poetry at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House in New York.

"A writer is lucky because he cures himself everyday." In this recorded talk from November 1970, Kurt Vonnegut shared his thoughts on writing as a guest speaker for a class at New York University. This animated video by Patrick Smith is part of PBS Digital Studios' Blank on Blank series.

The former New Yorker staff writer and director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU delivered this keynote address, "A Typology of Convergences: Towards a Unified Field Theory of Cultural Transmission," at the 2013 Graduate Student Conference at the School of Visual Arts.

Watch this trailer forTar, an independently produced movie based on the 1983 book of the same name by poet C. K. Williams. Twelve New York University students directed the film, which stars James Franco and Mila Kunis.

Susan Shapiro moderates a panel comprised of authors Leigh Newman (Still Points North), Moses Gates (Hidden Cities), and Royal Young (Fame Shark); book editors Danielle Perez (New American Library) and Naomi Rosenblatt (Heliotrope Books); journalism professor Susan Shapiro (New School, NYU); and literary agent Matt Wise and Renee Zuckerbrot.