We convened a day-long summit on free expression for 100 students at Harvard College, kicking off with a panel where CEO Suzanne Nossel spoke alongside Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, the University of Chicago’s John Boyer, and Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana. PEN America began work on campus free speech nine years ago because we saw signs that the place of open discourse and academic freedom was slipping. Our hope is that this moment of crisis can be a catalyst for embracing a broad range of speech on campuses across the country.. As part of the Harvard summit, students learned about the history of speech on campus from Princeton’s Keith Whittington, followed by sessions on free expression, academic freedom, protest rights, and cancel culture from PEN America's Nicholas Perez, Kristen Shahverdian, and Sabrina Adams.
At the Emmy awards, RuPaul referenced the bruising resistance to Drag Queen Story Hour, saying, “If a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her because knowledge is power, and if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you, so listen to a drag queen.” Here’s how listening to a drag queen - specifically RuPaul – changed PEN America consultant Dietlind Lerner’s life.
Jeremy C. Young, our Freedom to Learn program director, is writing widely about threats to higher education. He wrote a piece with Jeffrey Adam Sachs for Inside Higher Ed, analyzing how the threats to secondary education in state legislatures have changed and metastasized. He wrote with Jacqueline Allain in Governing, arguing that cuts to the arts and humanities are a free expression issue. He penned a piece with our new Florida Director Katie Blankenship in the Miami Herald, a call to action against a state regulation that would cripple academic freedom in higher ed. And in The Hill, he laid out a plan for higher education to defend itself in troubled times.
This week’s Member Spotlight features Glitter City by PEN America Member Bonnie Jill Emanuel. Like glitter-tiny, precision-cut, reflective particles, the poems in Glitter City shine by reflection with flashes of light. Narrative, cinematic, and at times trance-like, the poems trace their way back in time. From Fulton Street, Brooklyn to Detroit's Woodward Avenue, over city scaffolds and rural fields, across graveyards and weedy highways, Emanuel's debut collection grieves and loves, glittering fiercely.
Join PEN America and the Florida Freedom to Read Project to hear about the state of censorship efforts in K-12 public education and how recent and proposed Florida legislation undermine our public education system. Featuring PEN America's Freedom to Read Program Director Kasey Meehan and PEN America's Florida Director Katie Blankenship.
We braved freezing temperatures for our sold-out New Year New Books celebration in New York last week, featuring our literary host committee Gina Chung, Jennifer Egan, Javier Fuentes, Aya Ghanameh, Kyle Dillon Hertz, Catherine Lacey, Ayana Mathis, and Gary Shteyngart. Literary fans in the Los Angeles area can join us tomorrow with honorary literary hosts Steph Cha, Angela Flournoy, Jean Guerrero, Eloise Klein Healy, Miranda Cowley Heller, SHOOK, Susan Straight, Alison Tatlock, Alyesha Wise, alongside literary luminaries Diane Marie Brown, Kashana Cauley, Charmaine Craig, Tod Goldberg, Noami Hirahara, Rachel Howzell Hall, Ivy Pochoda, Belinda Huijuan Tang, and David L. Ulin.
In this week’s PEN Ten, queer Latinx poet, writer, and educator Andrés N. Ordorica discusses love, representation, and the importance of mentorship in his debut novel How We Named the Stars.
A book fair for grown-ups? With grown-up treats? Sign us up. Our first ever PEN Young Patrons event at Scholastic headquarters featured all the usual book fair trappings, plus an open bar, hors d’oeuvres, celebrated writers, a silent auction, free books, and a luminous rooftop view. Joshua Bennett, Cameron Westin Forbes, Maggie Gilbride, and Melissa Lee served as co-chairs, and featured authors included Naima Coster, Clover Hope, Zain Khalid, Melissa Lozada-Olivia, Kristen Radtke, Andrew Ridker, and Tara Westover, a PEN America board trustee.
CEO Suzanne Nossel wrote that DEI and free speech can – and should – go hand in hand. (CNN)
Nossel spoke with Columbia University Business School's podcast host Georgia Levenson Keohane about the current landscape of free speech challenges. (Capital for Good)
The New York Times editorial board quoted from PEN America's reports, The California Effect and America's Censored Classrooms 2023, in their editorial, When States Take Away Freedom of Thought. (The New York Times)
We mourned the loss of Robie Harris at age 83. The children's book author was a great supporter of PEN America, free expression and served over many years on its Children’s and Young Adult Books Committee. (PEN.org)
Ai Weiwei spoke to Democracy Now ahead of his PEN Out Loud event at The Town Hall last night.
It’s no “Oscars for Books” like our own Literary Awards, but we are proud to be associated with the Oscar-nominated films 20 Days in Mariupol, which we screened last World Press Freedom Day, and Sheila Nevins’ The ABC’s of Book Banning, for which we contributed research and expertise. (Let’s just call the Oscars the “PEN America Literary Awards for Movies.”)
"My art is about losing control."
- Ai Weiwei, speaking with Mira Jacobs at last night’s PEN Out Loud at New York’s The Town Hall
TRENDING @ PENAMERICA
Bill O’Reilly, the conservative commentator, ex-Fox News host, and bestselling author, once proudly supported book bans in Florida schools. That was before two of his own books were banned, and before he realized how vague wording in laws and an official directive to “err on the side of caution” is leading districts to ban scores and scores of books.
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