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.
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.
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’sBrave New World, and James Joyce’sUlysses
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.
The PEN Ten: On Family Narratives through Multiple Voices
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.
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.
[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!
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).
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)
Summer Lopez discussed book banning at Monadnock Summer Lyceum. (Watch)
We mourned the tragic death of Bloomsbury President Adrienne Vaughan, an ally in our fight for free expression. (Read more)
Liz Woolery calls out Elon Musk’s lawsuit against a nonprofit: he’s a free speech phony. (The Daily Beast)
WHAT WE'RE READING
Joseph Gordon Levitt: If Artificial Intelligence Uses Your Work, It Should Pay You (The Washington Post)
New Study Shows Just How Facebook’s Algorithm Shapes Conservative and Liberal Bubbles (NPR)
Why the Populist Right Hates Universities (The Atlantic)
The Next Frontier in Florida Education Wars: Climate (Politico)
“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
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.
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