Plus, join our campaign to restrict 'Don't Say Gay'

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Sep 6, 2023


** PEN America News: A New Fund To Help Screenwriters Survive the Strike
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As the writers’ strike stretches on, we launched a special fund to help film and television writers struggling to pay their bills. The Screenwriters Emergency Financial Assistance Fund is a short-term grant program within the ongoing PEN America U.S. Writers Aid Initiative to help early career or emergent screenwriters with demonstrated financial need.

Learn more >> ([link removed])
Apply for a grant >> ([link removed])

Questions may be addressed to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
PEN DEFENDS
Tell Florida: You Can’t Have It Both Ways

In legal filings, Florida's attorney general said "Don't Say Gay" applies only to classroom instruction, not school libraries. And yet books with LGBTQ+ themes are being purged from school libraries across the state. In partnership with the Florida Freedom to Read Project, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and We Need Diverse Books, we asked the Florida Department of Education to provide clear guidance to schools, and offered to help restock books that were mistakenly removed.

Send a letter to Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. >> ([link removed])
'Don't Say Gay' Is Not Just In Florida
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Teachers in North Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa, and Indiana are beginning their school years newly stripped of their right to say “gay.” Except for Arkansas, the new laws also include provisions that would require teachers or administrators to “out” trans students to their parents, one alarming form of educational intimidation documented in our recent report.

Read more on ‘Don’t Say Gay’ copycats >> ([link removed])
More on Educational Intimidation >> ([link removed])
PEN READS
The PEN Ten: Poetry As Symphony
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“I think love poems are the most daring things we can write.” So says Megan Fernandes, whose poetry collection I Do Everything I’m Told is the subject of our latest PEN Ten.

Read the interview >> ([link removed])
Discover more PEN Ten interviews >> ([link removed])
Meet the 2023 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize Winners
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Stephenjohn Holgate, Sonia Feldman, Clara Mundy, and Faire Holliday kicked off our series of Q&As with the contributors to this year’s Best Debut Short Stories anthology, published by Catapult. Their stories were selected for the 2023 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers by judges Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz.

Read more from the winners >> ([link removed])
Order the anthology >> ([link removed])
Spotlight on PEN Members

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PEN America member Jonathan Cohen recently translated Poems of Good Love…and Sometimes Fantasy by Pedro Mir. Translated from Spanish by the Dominican Republic's late poet laureate, this book of poetry presents a side of Mir unknown to Anglophone readers: his love poetry, often erotic and very different from the bardic political poetry associated with him. It is a celebration of the carnality of love and the sheer joy of sex as the biological gift that (perhaps) ensures our continuance as a human species.

Check out Poems of Good Love…And Sometimes Fantasy >> View 2023 publications by PEN America Members here >> ([link removed])

PEN EVENTS

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PEN America @ National Constitution Center’s National First Amendment Summit
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 | 5:30 pm ET

The National Constitution Center, in partnership with a coalition of leading free speech organizations, announced today that it will host a National First Amendment Summit to address the increasing threats to freedom of expression and the challenges ahead posed by new technologies. Author and free-speech advocate Salman Rushdie will be in conversation with Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, via livestream.
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PEN SPEAKS
* In the struggle against authoritarianism, artists play an overlooked role as catalysts for social change, drivers of accountability, and prophets of freer futures. CEO Suzanne Nossel wrote about the overlooked but potent artist in the fight against autocracy. (Just Security ([link removed]) )

* Jeremy Young, leader of the Freedom to Learn program, highlighted New College of Florida trustee Christopher Rufo’s role in restricting academic freedom at the college and in driving the broader Ed Scare. (TIME ([link removed]) )

* Allison Lee, who leads our Los Angeles work, and her former Tufts roommate Stacy Lieberman, president of the Library Foundation of LA, spoke with their alma mater about reuniting after 30 years to defend the right to read, write, and learn. (Tufts Now ([link removed]) )

* Kasey Meehan, director of our Freedom to Read program, said some Georgia schools are removing books even before parents ask in a politically motivated effort that has little to do with so-called “parental rights.” (The Washington Post ([link removed]) )

* Justin Shilad, our expert on the MENA region, wrote about a broad attack on LGBTQ+ rights in Lebanon that reflects a larger trend of attacks on free expression in the country and the region. (PEN ([link removed]) )

WHAT WE'RE READING
* Philanthropic spending on journalism rises sharply over five years (AP ([link removed]) )

* This Summer, I Became the Book-Banning Monster of Iowa (The New York Times ([link removed]) )

* China Is Cracking Down on Cantonese Language Advocacy in Hong Kong (TIME ([link removed]) )

* Montgomery students can’t opt out of LGBTQ storybooks, judge says (The Washington Post ([link removed]) )

* Survey Shows Chilling Effect of Book Challenges on School Librarians (School Library Journal ([link removed]) )


** "I don’t want people to tell me what to write or what I can’t write."
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** - PEN America President Ayad Akhtar, in the newly published transcript ([link removed]) of his PEN World Voices session, Matters of Offense.
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TRENDING @ PENAMERICA

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How ‘Parental Rights’ Strip Parents of Their Rights

Jonathan Friedman, director of Free Expression and Education Programs, explains how the rhetoric of “parental rights” is leading to hundreds of vaguely worded bills that are giving a vocal minority outsized power to reduce access to information.

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