Ailsa Piper on Bruno Lettieri

Bruno Lettieri is the go-to guy for great public conversation. He calls himself a gardener, and in just the way that Seamus Heaney wrote of himself digging with his pen, so Bruno cultivates with his curiosity. He makes friends of entire audiences by asking the questions they want asked, even when they didn’t know it. He beguiles writers into revealing the things in their work that were hidden even from them. He elicits responses that are surprising and expansive, and all who are interviewed by him come away enriched - as do the delighted audiences who have become “Bruno’s tribe.” He is without ego, interested only in the story and then the story beneath the story. I suspect that if Bruno interviewed me every couple of months as I was working on a new project, the result would be vastly improved! I’m always grateful for his insights, for his questing mind, and for his original and perceptive take on the world.

​He is a builder of literary communities and a guardian of the sacredness of story.

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