PEN America joined with publishing houses, advocacy organizations, and hundreds of writers in an open letter urging South Carolina’s lawmakers to halt regulations that could lead to restrictions on countless works of literature. The regulations, which are slated to go into effect on June 25, mirror legislation in Iowa that resulted in mass book bans affecting classics, books used in advanced placement courses, and contemporary young adult novels.
PEN America joined with Reporters Without Borders, Front Line Defenders, and the Narges Mohammadi Foundation to form the Free Narges Coalition, which is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Narges Mohammadi, the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Honoree and the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The creation of the coalition follows a June 8 hearing in a new case that could lengthen Mohammadi’s sentence.
In 2022, Wisconsin media recounted a harrowing story of a farm worker who had fatally run over his son with a 6,700-pound skid steer. It took old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting from a ProPublica reporter to reveal that the story was misinformation. Despite all the technology at our fingertips, journalists must take care not to underestimate the importance of face-to-face communication in the modern era, Elizabeth Lepro writes for our Facts Forward, an article in collaboration with the International Journalists Network.
This week’s Member Spotlight features Ember Days by PEN America Member Mary Gilliland. The poems of Ember Days feature soldiers under duress, models transformed to artists, descendants of forced immigrants, survivors of hurricanes, witnesses for peace—stepping up to our world’s disasters, leveling with its possibilities, interrogating faith, justice, militarism, madness, and the perception and affection of intimate relationships.
PEN Miami/South Florida joined with The New Republic for a Right to Read celebration featuring book readings and conversations with a group of banned writers. Florida Director Katie Blankenship was among those honoring individuals—authors, librarians, teachers, activists, and others—who have taken extraordinary action to protect the right to read with a Toni Morrison Courage Award.
For our latest PEN Ten, author Matthew Mendoza spoke with Malcolm Tariq, senior editorial manager for PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program, about his writing process in prison, his favorite works of literature, and a podcast of his play, What’s Prison Like? Mendoza’s short story, "Hinges & Runners," explores complex themes of abuse and earned an honorable mention in fiction in the most recent PEN Prison Writing Awards.
Moira Marquis, senior manager at the PEN America Freewrite project, spoke to The Washington Post about the decline in access to books in prison as well as the book she co-edited, Books Through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement. (Washington Post)
Florida Director Katie Blankenship criticized new instructions that ask public school librarians to “err on the side of caution” when reviewing books with sexual content. (Miami Times)
NPR news looked to Kasey Meehan, program director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read, to describe how PEN America defines book bans. (NPR)
One small library in Ivanovo, Russia, offers a vast collection of books that delve into dystopian worlds and autocratic regimes. “It’s a little island of freedom in an unfree environment,” one volunteer said. (BBC News)
At The Minneapolis Central Library, services span far beyond book recommendations and technology support...to homeless patrons who might not seek government services elsewhere. (The New Yorker)
During her graduation from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy, Annabelle Jenkins dropped a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale at the feet of her school district’s superintendent. Her quick and quiet gesture served to protest the recent removal of several “obscene” books from school libraries. (The Washington Post)
“Young people deserve access to literature, the same as they have had for years. Books aren’t harmful — censorship is. ”
- The signatories of the open letter to South Carolina legislators
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The Des Moines Register reported that Iowa schools pulled 3,385 books from their shelves last fall, more bans than PEN America counted across the nation over the course of the entire previous school year. Among the books were Captain Underpants, 1984, and The Giver.
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