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Category: Interviews

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Behind “Climate Change, Nature, and the Writer’s Eye”: Q&A with Marie Arana, Literary Advisor to the Librarian of Congress

Posted by: Robert Casper

Tomorrow, March 20, the Library of Congress will host “Climate Change, Nature, and the Writer’s Eye,” a program honoring 2018 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction winner Annie Proulx. In anticipation, I asked Marie Arana—the coordinator of the prize, literary advisor to the Librarian of Congress, and literary director of the National Book Festival—a …

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New Podcast Episode on Making “American Conversations” Launches Today!

Posted by: Anne Holmes

To say that it’s been a busy year for Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith would be an understatement. Just last month she concluded her second-term project, “American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities,” with a visit to southern Louisiana—her fourth state visit since August. We hope you’ve been following along on the blog and on …

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“I don’t understand it”: Why you should read our newly relaunched poetry interview series

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The following is a guest post by Anastasia Nikolis, the poetry editor for our newly relaunched Interview Series. Poetry has a reputation of being eccentric and esoteric; of being stunningly opaque but deeply meaningful. This is why people say they “don’t understand it,” won’t often read it, and more often turn to poems at times …

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“Memory at its Core”: An Interview with Celeste Ng

Posted by: Anne Holmes

Six years ago, the Poetry and Literature Center celebrated its historic 75th anniversary by introducing a host of new online features, including its Interview Series. Between 2012 and 2015, the Center’s staff, interns, and friends across the Library of Congress engaged 16 emerging and established literary writers in dynamic and thought-provoking conversation. Over the past year, with …

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Ariel Dorfman and “La Voz Latina”

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The following introduction is written by Marie Arana, curator of “La Voz Latina”; literary advisor to the Library of Congress; coordinator of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction; and literary director of the National Book Festival. This past weekend, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, we were thrilled to …

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New Podcast Episode: Juan Felipe Herrera and the National Book Festival Youth Poetry Slam

Posted by: Anne Holmes

For your listening pleasure, the sixth episode of From the Catbird Seat—our new poetry podcast series—is up on our website and on iTunes. In this sixth installment, we revisit the 2015 Youth Poetry Slam at the National Book Festival. The Youth Poetry Slam event debuted at the Festival just a year earlier, in 2014, as …