How generative AI and online review-bombing have far-reaching consequences for free speech.

View this email in your browser ([link removed])
[link removed]
Aug 9, 2023


** Defending the Freedom to Imagine
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]

For more than a year, we have been interrogating the consequences of an increasingly toxic atmosphere online for writers and publishers. After dozens of interviews and extensive internal debate, this week we published Booklash: Literary Freedom, Online Outrage, and the Language of Harm. The report examines cases where publishers or authors voluntarily pulled back books from publication or circulation, and finds that these incidents, although rare, are driven by the same language of harm that has been used to yank books from shelves in Florida and elsewhere.

Read the report and introduction from PEN America President Ayad Akhtar ([link removed]) >> ([link removed])
Read more in The Atlantic >> ([link removed])
PEN DEFENDS
Hollywood’s Fight Against A.I. Affects Us All
[link removed]

Artificial Intelligence – once fodder for great works of fiction – has become a clear threat to those who create it. PEN America’s new white paper, Speech in the Machine: Generative AI’s Implications for Free Expression, examines the implications of A.I. for free speech, creative expression, and the very notion of truth. It offers principles to guide policymakers and others wrestling with the possible impacts on society.

Read the report >> ([link removed])
Read Suzanne Nossel in The New Republic >> ([link removed])
Iowa School District Bans the Classics

Last week, an Iowa school district ordered its educators to remove a list of nearly 400 titles if found in district schools and classrooms. After public pressure including our open letter, the district dropped its objections to many of the titles and released a new list of 65 books, still a jaw-dropping number that includes Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and James Joyce’s Ulysses

Read more >> ([link removed])
Send a letter to the district >> ([link removed])
PEN READS
Stories by Migrant Writers
[link removed]

Our fifth volume of DREAMing Out Loud: An Anthology of Migrant Writing, includes bold new plays, short stories, poems, essays, and, for the first time, children’s book writing and illustrations, by writers from Mexico to Nigeria, Kazakhstan to Honduras, Brazil to Jamaica, South Africa to Bangladesh. Returning to an in-person format for the first time since the start of the pandemic, our DREAMing Out Loud program is a tuition-free writing workshop for migrant writers, primarily those who are undocumented, DACA recipients, and/or DREAMers who came to the United States when they were children.

Read more and purchase ([link removed])
The PEN Ten: On Family Narratives through Multiple Voices
[link removed]

For years Eddie Ndopu has been one of the preeminent voices on disability justice advocacy. Now, he brings his much sought after oratory wisdom to the page in an insightful and humorous memoir Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw. A generous offering, Ndopu, through self-reflection, provides a blueprint to living a full life. In this PEN Ten, Ndopu discusses the relationship between truth and heartbreak, the complexity and multiplicity of disabled people’s lives, and the need to create one’s own reality.

Read the interview >> ([link removed])
Read more PEN Ten interviews >> ([link removed])
Spotlight on PEN Members

[link removed]

PEN America Member Elina Alter recently translated It’s the End of the World, My Love by Alla Gorbunova. Otherworldly forces, dark phantasmagoria, and the horrors of underground life all swirl in Alla Gorbunova's audacious and spectacular novel. Gorbunova's heroes and heroines, a cast of children, students, beggars, and poets, live their lives intensively, balancing between longing and euphoria in St. Petersburg.

Check out ([link removed]) It's the End of the World, My Love >> ([link removed])
View 2023 publications by PEN America members >> ([link removed])

PEN EVENTS
[link removed]
[VIRTUAL] WOMEN IN TRANSLATION READING SERIES 2023
Thursday, August 17, 2023 | 8:00-10:00 PM ET
Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 1:00-3:00 PM ET
Online Events

This August we once again celebrate Women in Translation (#WiT) Month! Started in 2014 to raise awareness of translated literature by women, queer, and nonbinary authors, and promote gender and cultural diversity in literary publishing, this year, the free, virtual reading will be an international celebration!
Learn More ([link removed])




PEN SPEAKS
* A new digital resource uses PEN America's book ban data combined with GPS tracking to provide free access to e-book and audiobook copies of banned books (School Library Journal ([link removed]) ).

* After Florida clashed with the College Board over teaching gender and sexuality in its A.P. psychology course, Kasey Meehan explains the increased climate of fear for educators across the country. (Seattle Times ([link removed]) )

* Summer Lopez discussed book banning at Monadnock Summer Lyceum. (Watch ([link removed]) )

* We mourned the tragic death of Bloomsbury President Adrienne Vaughan, an ally in our fight for free expression. (Read more ([link removed]) )

* Liz Woolery calls out Elon Musk’s lawsuit against a nonprofit: he’s a free speech phony. (The Daily Beast ([link removed]) )

WHAT WE'RE READING
* Joseph Gordon Levitt: If Artificial Intelligence Uses Your Work, It Should Pay You (The Washington Post ([link removed]) )

* New Study Shows Just How Facebook’s Algorithm Shapes Conservative and Liberal Bubbles (NPR ([link removed]) )

* Why the Populist Right Hates Universities (The Atlantic ([link removed]) )

* How Sexual Assault in a School Bathroom Became a Political Weapon (The New York Times Magazine ([link removed]) )

* What Can You Do When A.I. Lies About You? (The New York Times ([link removed]) )

* The Next Frontier in Florida Education Wars: Climate (Politico ([link removed]) )


** “Defending a robust space for creative expression and for a broad exchange of ideas and perspectives requires making room for controversial books, books that offend, books that ‘get it wrong.'”
------------------------------------------------------------


** - PEN America President Ayad Akhtar
------------------------------------------------------------
TRENDING @ PENAMERICA

[link removed]

The Florida State Board of Education adopted new rules for teaching Black history that say students should learn that enslaved people "developed skills" that "could be applied for their personal benefit."

Stephana Ferrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project was among those speaking out against the new rules on Wednesday. The board passed the new standards unanimously.

Watch now >> ([link removed])
[link removed] [link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
PEN America- New York:
588 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
PEN America- Washington, DC:
1100 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC xxxxxx
PEN America- Los Angeles:
1370 N. Saint Andrews Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences ([link removed]) or unsubscribe from this list ([link removed]) .

============================================================