Today we announced that we are expanding our existing support to Palestinian writers by making a substantial financial contribution to the Netherlands-based PEN Emergency Fund for distribution to Palestinian writers in need. We explained more about our work on the crisis in Israel and Gaza in a letter to our community.
In the recent legislative session in Florida, PEN America’s advocacy had a direct hand in making sure several “culture war” bills failed without becoming law, keeping censorship from infringing on free speech and free expression. Florida Director Katie Blankenship explained how it happened.
We urged the Senate to reject the bill that would ban TikTok in the United States unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells it. Banning TikTok sets an alarming precedent for addressing legitimate concerns over safety and privacy. Interim Washington Director Hadar Harris explained more on Between the Lines.
This week’s Member Spotlight features L’Air du Temps (1985) by PEN America Member Diane Josefowicz. In 1985, the shooting of Mr. Marfeo disrupts the quiet suburban neighborhood of Maple Bay and prompts thirteen-year-old Zinnia Zompa to reorganize everything she knows about her parents—their preoccupations, obsessions, and above all, their battles with each other. As her understanding of the world grows, Zinnia sees how the violence she witnesses is part of a larger pattern of domination, one that shadows the world far beyond her neighborhood, and her coming-of-age means reckoning with this darkness.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
8:00 pm – 9:00 pm ET Virtual event
Random House Publishing Group and PEN America are proud to present internationally renowned writer, free speech advocate, and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie in conversation with Suleika Jaouad, the New York Times bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, founder of The Isolation Journals, and subject of the Netflix documentary American Symphony. Rushdie’s new memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, is a gripping account of surviving an attempt on his life 30 years after the fatwa was ordered against him. In unforgettable detail, Rushdie is speaking out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022.
Michael Arceneaux discusses race, labor, and culture in his third essay collection I Finally Bought Some Jordans. Arceneaux’s stories define what it means to be a Black creative in the publishing world, the challenges of dating amidst COVID-19, and how his role as a son and uncle played a part in his development. For this week’s PEN Ten, he spoke with Natasha Santana, PEN America’s World Voices Festival and Literary Programs intern.
People organizing prison books programs have quietly gathered in basements, storage spaces, and the back rooms of secondhand bookstores for the last 70 years, reading letters from incarcerated people and sending books in return. Books Through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement is a collection of inspiring stories from the prison book movement, co-edited by Moira Marquis, who manages the Freewrite Project in PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program.
Summer Lopez spoke about Guernica magazine’s decision to retract an essay by an Israeli writer, saying “a writer’s published work should not be yanked from circulation because it sparks public outcry or sharp disagreement.” (The New York Times)
Jonathan Friedman appeared in a special, Read or Restrict, about the controversy in Indiana over book bans. (WFYI)
PEN America and EveryLibrary issued a statement in opposition to a proposed ordinance in Huntington Beach, California, that would empower a community board to review children's library books for content. (PEN.org)
Jeremy C Young and Jacqueline Allain wrote about why Americans must speak up to defend university autonomy. (University News)
Arizona chapter leader Michelle Beaver wrote about the threat of disinformation and how to protect yourself. (Arizona Mirror)
Lily D. McNair, a former president of Tuskegee University, makes a powerful case against an Alabama bill, about to be signed by the governor, that is similar to, and slightly worse than, Florida's Stop WOKE Act. (Alabama Reflector)
Supreme Court seems favorable to Biden administration over efforts to combat social media posts (AP)
Moms for Liberty candidates won less elections in 2023, but is winning the group’s goal? (USA Today)
Culture Warriors—on Both Sides—Are Wrong About America’s History Classrooms (TIME)
"This is what I think of every time I send a book to someone inside: It’s a little life raft. It’s a gift of hope for another future. It’s a salve for the pain of isolation."
- Moira Marquis, Freewrite Project senior manager
TRENDING @ PENAMERICA
A quarter of the more than 3,000 instances of book bans counted by PEN America in the 2022-2023 school year contained scenes of rape or sexual assault. A book about sexual assault may be difficult reading, but banning it doesn't protect teens — it puts them at risk. Kasey Meehan explains why in a video made possible in part by a grant from the A-Mark Foundation.
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