Five Things to See at the New Yorker Festival

Today, the 16th-annual New Yorker Festival kicks off three days of interviews, panel discussions, performances, and more in celebration of the arts and ideas. This year’s full and diverse slate of cultural programming will also be joined by Tech@Fest, a series of events dedicated to examining the transformative impact of technology and innovation on society. Though a few events have sold out online, have no fear—there will be additional tickets available for purchase.

Of the Festival’s 57 programs, here are our top five literary picks:

Photograph by Joyce Ravid

Don DeLillo Talks with Deborah Treisman
7 p.m. Friday October 2, 90 minutes
Directors Guild Theatre

The legendary author of White Noise, Underworld, and 13 other novels will be in conversation with Deborah Treisman, the New Yorker’s fiction editor since 2002 and host of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast.

Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook

Creating Complicated Characters
1 p.m. Saturday October 3, 90 minutes
Gramercy Theatre

In a conversation moderated by New Yorker fiction and nonfiction editor Willing Davidson, Man Booker Prize nominated Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, The Unnamed), PEN/Hemingway Award winner Yiyun Lin (A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants), and Orange Prize recipient Lionel Shriver will discuss their fictional misfits.

Illustration by Min Heo

The Writing Process
4 p.m. Saturday October 3, 90 minutes
Gramercy Theatre

New Yorker deputy fiction editor Cressida Leyshon will moderate a discussion on craft between Pulitzer winner Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot, Middlesex), author and editor Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be?, Women in Clothes), and newly minted MacArthur genius Ben Lerner (Leaving the Atocha Station, 10:04).

Photograph by Jesse Dittmar

Patti Smith Talks with David Remnick
9:30 p.m. Saturday October 3, 90 minutes
MasterCard Stage at SVA Theatre 1

Multi-hyphenate Patti Smith (writer-performer-visual-artist-National-Book-Award-winner) will discuss her new memoir, M Train, with New Yorker EIC David Remnick.

Photograph by Philip Montgomery

The Fire This Time
12 p.m. Sunday October 4
Acura at SIR Stage37

New Yorker Staff Writer and Associate Professor of History/Director of the Institute for African American Studies at University of Connecticut Jelani Cobb will moderate a blockbuster panel discussion between journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me), Zimbabwean-American actress, playwright, and activist Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead), poet and USC Aerol Arnold Chair of English Claudia Rankine (Citizen), journalist and screenwriter David Simon (The Wire), and actor and activist Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy).