Writers at Work/The Paris Review: An Evening with Kwame Anthony Appiah and David Remnick
On Wednesday, January 29, New Yorker editor David Remnick will interview scholar, philosopher, and author Kwame Anthony Appiah for his Art of Nonfiction interview at the Morgan Library.
The Paris Review’s renowned Writers at Work interview series is one of the landmarks of modern world literature. Hailed by the New York Times as “the most remarkable interviewing project we possess,” the series received a George Polk Award and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Writers at Work interviews, at once expansive and intimate, are rarely conducted in public; Mr. Remnick’s interview of Mr. Appiah brings one of the leading intellectuals of our time into conversation with one of New York’s great editors on a truly special evening.
The exhibition Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being will be open at 6 PM for program attendees. Select works from The Paris Review Archive, owned by the Morgan, will be on view.
Tickets: $20; $15 for Morgan Members and Paris Review Subscribers; free for students with valid ID.
Launching "The Cactus League": Emily Nemens and David Duchovny
One of The Wall Street Journal's 10 New Books You Should Be Picking Up First In 2020
An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball from Emily Nemens, the editor of The Paris Review
Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own.
Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens' The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.
Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.
Emily Nemens is the editor of The Paris Review. She was previously the co-editor of The Southern Review. Her work has been published in Esquire, n+1, The Gettysburg Review, Hobart and elsewhere, and she is the author of The Cactus League.
David Duchovny is a television, stage, and screen actor, as well as a screenwriter and director. He lives in New York and Los Angeles. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Miss Subways, Bucky F*cking Dent, and Holy Cow, all published by FSG.
Association of Writers and Writing Programs San Antonio, TX 2020
The Paris Review will once again be at the AWP Conference & Bookfair, the largest meeting of writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers in North America. This year’s convention will take place in San Antonio, Texas. The conference features more than 2,000 presenters and 550 readings, panels, and craft lectures. The bookfair hosts more than 800 presses, journals, and literary organizations from around the world. If you’ll be attending, stop by Booth 1422 at the bookfair or attend events featuring staff members of The Paris Review.
Room 006A, Henry B. González Convention Center, River Level Friday, March 6, 2020 3:20 P.M. to 4:35 P.M.
The relationship between writers and editors is as storied as the history of publishing itself. An editor must be able to subsume their own voice in order to attend to another’s. Yet there are creative benefits to the writer who also edits. What is the overlap between writing and editing? What does it take to function effectively as both a writer and an editor? In this panel, contemporary writers who are also editors will discuss the practice of being of two minds: editorial and authorial.
Moderator: James Cihlar
Participants: Karen Babine, Heid E. Erdrich, William Johnson, Craig Morgan Teicher
Room 205, Henry B. González Convention Center, Meeting Room Level Saturday, March 7, 2020 10:35 A.M. to 11:50 A.M.
What are the paths to editing a literary magazine? This panel of accomplished editors will share their best advice for those hoping to break into the field. They’ll cover getting that first job, getting paid, what hiring parties are looking for, issues of inclusivity and bias, industry trends, and how editing can complement or conflict with other parts of a writer’s career. Journals represented include Ecotone, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Paris Review, Shenandoah, and Virginia Quarterly Review.
Room 217D, Henry B. González Convention Center, Meeting Room Level Saturday, March 7, 2020 12:10 P.M. to 1:25 P.M.
The submission process can be daunting and mysterious. Most of us use an online submission system and then patiently wait—sometimes for more than a year—before receiving a canned rejection. So what can the average writer do to be a better submitter of their work, to catch an editor’s eye, to get past the slush pile? This diverse panel assembles some of the top literary-magazine editors in the country to answer questions about the submissions process and what goes on behind the scenes.
Moderator: Christian Kiefer
Participants: Emily Nemens, Adam Ross, Oscar Villalon, Allison Wright
PAST EVENT: A Conversation Around The World: Launching Writers at Work around the World
To celebrate The Paris Review’s latest anthology, Writers at Work around the World, the magazine is saluting its international origins with a conversation in English at the Albertine Bookstore (972 Fifth Avenue). Join us for the launch on Thursday, June 6, at 7:00 P.M. Paris Review editor Emily Nemens will be in conversation with recent contributor Hernan Diaz and Peter Carey, whose 2006 Art of Fiction interview is featured in the anthology. The event is free and open to the public.
Writers at Work around the World is the latest volume published by the magazine’s in-house, limited-edition imprint, Paris Review Editions. Two currents have been central to the magazine since its founding in Paris in the fifties: internationalism, and documenting the thoughts, processes, and concerns of the greatest writers of our time. The book explores fiction from all corners of the globe, beginning with François Mauriac’s interview in 1953 and reaching forward to Dany Laferrière’s in 2017, stopping along the way with Chinua Achebe, Jorge Luis Borges, Ha Jin, Herta Müller, and Elena Ferrante, among others.
Dear Poets, Can you suggest a poem to help me start moving forward? Dear Poets, Is there a poem that captures the slow melancholy of a rainy day? Dear Poets, Is there a poem that holds all the hope I hold for the future? Dear Poets, I’m queer, I’m queer, I’m so queer and so closeted. Help.
In our beloved online column Poetry Rx, readers write in with a specific emotion or problem, and our resident poets—Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz—take turns prescribing the perfect poem to match. On June 8 at 4 P.M., these star poets will take the stage and fix you with poetry, LIVE at the Bell House.
Buy your tickets from The Bell Houseand then submit your own question to [email protected] — there's a good chance your question will be chosen the night of the event! (all submissions will be anonymous)