Prolific, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres) has released a majestic new collection of essays, The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom.

In the book she gets under the skin of artists such as Marguerite de Navarre, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Franz Kafka, Halldór Laxness, and Jessica Mitford, to offer new ways of thinking about how writers engage with the personal and the political through their work. In this special event, Smiley speaks with Kate Camp about what matters most to her.