Poets & Writers Theater

“The book is, in many ways, about expectations and change.” In this Fane Productions event, Juli Min reads from her debut novel, Shanghailanders (Spiegel & Grau, 2024), and discusses her choice to begin the novel in the future in Shanghai and how the diverse and multifaceted city is its own character in a conversation with author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan.

“Over time, pets become like their owners. Over time, I had become more like the fox.” In this book trailer for Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship (Spiegel & Grau, 2021), Catherine Raven reads an excerpt from her memoir, which is featured Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Spiegel & Grau, 2014) by Bryan Stevenson, a memoir recounting his experience as a young defense attorney fighting for a death row inmate wrongfully convicted of murder, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the legal drama stars Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, and Rafe Spall.

"If you're not about the truth, you're not qualified to play any kind of music." National Book Award–winner James McBride reads from Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul (Spiegel & Grau, 2016), a book covering the life of James Brown and McBride's personal history with music. 

One BookTuber offers his view on 2015's book lists from the New York Times to Publishers Weekly, Amazon to Goodreads. Paula Hawkins's debut novel, The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), James Hannaham's Delicious Foods (Little, Brown, 2015), and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) are books that top the lists. 

"Within that economy of words, you choose words that have certain angles, that have certain edges, that effect people in a certain way." Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose memoir Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, speaks with Khalil Gibran Muhammad about what he learned as a poet and how those skills continue to influence his writing.

"I strongly believe that writing is an act of courage—it's almost an act of physical courage." Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about the personal strength necessary for writing, and reflects on his experience with breakthroughs. Coates's memoir Between the World and Me, published by Spiegel & Grau this week, is an exploration of racial history in the United States.

Mary Johnson, a former nun in Mother Teresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity, talks about her new memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life (Spiegel & Grau). Watch the video then read Eryn Loeb's article about Johnson in the current issue of the magazine.