By clicking “Accept,” you agree to the use of cookies and similar technologies on your device as set forth in our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy. Please note that certain cookies are essential for this website to function properly and do not require user consent to be deployed.

Practice

Contributors

By Ross Gay

By Noah Davis

Formats and Prices

Price

$18.99

Format

Format:

  1. Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $18.99
  2. Hardcover $25.95 $34.95 CAD

A 45-year-old Black man. A 24-year-old white man. Both writers. One a teacher; the other his student. Before the pandemic separated them, Ross Gay and one of his graduate poetry students, Noah Davis, met regularly to play one-on-one basketball. It was a real hard workout. After each session they were moved to exchange letters about basketball and so much more. Gay and Davis, who both attended college on sports scholarships, have taught and coached basketball, and love the sport—its beauty, its athleticism—see their letters as a way to work through some of the larger issues inherent in sports, from misogyny to race to competition, and as their friendship deepens, basketball becomes a springboard for talking how men relate to each other and to the world. All while never losing sight of how playing games brings them delight, which is, of course, Gay’s signature subject.

On Sale
Feb 3, 2026
Page Count
208 pages
Publisher
Hachette Audio
ISBN-13
9781649040862

Ross Gay

About the Author

Ross Gay is the New York Times bestselling author of the essay collections The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy and four books of poetry. His Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Be Holding won the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. Gay is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.

Noah Davis grew up in Tipton, Pennsylvania, and writes about the Allegheny Front. His poems and prose have appeared in Best New Poets, Orion Magazine, North American Review, River Teeth Journal, Sou’wester, and Chautauqua, among others. His first collection of poetry, Of This River, was published in August 2020.

Learn more about this author

Noah Davis

About the Author

Noah Davis grew up in Tipton, Pennsylvania, and writes about the Allegheny Front. His poems and prose have appeared in Best New Poets, Orion Magazine, North American Review, River Teeth Journal, Sou’wester, and Chautauqua, among others. His first collection of poetry, Of This River, was published in August 2020.

Learn more about this author