Cuts to Public Media a ‘Stark Betrayal of Millions of Americans’ |
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The House of Representatives gave final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to strip $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes congressional appropriations to NPR, PBS, and local TV and radio stations. “Congress had the chance to show bipartisan support for public media, as it has for decades, but instead caved to President Trump’s campaign to punish dissent and control what information Americans can access,” said Tim Richardson, calling it “a stark betrayal of millions of Americans.”
Read more >>
Author Heather Lende on how public radio literally served as a lifeline in Alaska >>
Read NBC’s coverage >> |
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Hundreds of Books on Democracy, Feminism, Racism Removed from DoD Schools |
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In a case of bitter irony, the Young Adult book You Call This Democracy? was among the 596 titles recently banned from Department of Defense schools. A federal judge released the full list of banned titles, which have been removed from shelves pending review, as part of a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of military students and families. The alarming list includes nonfiction books about race and racism, picture books about feminism and the LGBTQ+ community, and even AP psychology study guides.
Read more >>
See the full list >> |
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Congratulations to the 2025 Emerging Voices Fellows |
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Meet the 2025 Emerging Voices Fellows – Trini Bui, Danielle Shandiin Emerson, Leila Farjami, Elisabeth Vasquez Hein, Varun U. Shetty, Pegah Ouji, Ava Pauline Emilione, Emily del Carmen Ramirez, and Solomon Tesfaye. Chosen from a record-high applicant pool, each fellow will receive $1,500 and partake in a five-month immersive mentorship program that includes virtually accessible creative writing workshops, visits from publishing professionals and established writers, and workshops that emphasize the business of books.
Read more about the fellows, mentors, and program >> |
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PEN America and Eleanor Roosevelt Center to Co-Present 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award to Margaret Atwood |
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The 2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature recognize Margaret Atwood, PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan and eight other authors whose works advance human rights amid a surge in book bans and censorship. Atwood will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award and will be interviewed on stage at the Oct. 11th ceremony. Tickets for the event go on sale July 24 at the Bardavon Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Learn more >> |
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This week’s Member Spotlight features A Precise Chaos by PEN America member Jo-Ann Mort. A life-long commitment to social evolution—and, occasionally, revolution—animates the poems in Mort's debut collection, A Precise Chaos. Moving from Mostar to Oaxaca, Paris to Taormina, Mort's peripatetic poems reflect her experiences as a trade union activist, a political organizer, and a peace activist in the Middle East.
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Thu. August 7, 14, and 21
Online
Free
August is Women in Translation Month and this year our free, virtual reading series gathers voices from across time zones for an international celebration! Organized by PEN America and the PEN America Translation Committee, these three events bring together panels of translators and their authors, working in a diversity of languages. The readings will be followed by brief Q&A discussions.
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| George Takei: ‘Huge parts of our history are being wiped away’
After They Called Us Enemy, George Takei’s firsthand account of life in Japanese American internment camps, was banned yet again, he took to Instagram to discuss why young people across the country need access to the book. |
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Submit Entries to the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards!
Since 1963, PEN America has honored outstanding voices in translation, fiction, poetry, science writing, essay, biography, and drama. Publishers and editors may submit titles published in 2025 for consideration before August 20 >>
How Texas Gutted Free Speech — And Might Spur Other States To Do The Same
Two new Texas laws amount to a stunningly aggressive legislative crackdown on campus protest and academic shared governance at public colleges and universities. In a Washington Post op-ed, Laura Benitez and Jonathan Friedman write that the laws establish a blueprint for dismantling academic freedom and chilling speech at public colleges and universities. Read more >>
The Big Beautiful Bill Is an Ugly Attack on Higher Education
The 2025 Reconciliation Bill, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” represents the Trump administration’s latest effort to undermine higher education. The bill slashes federal student financial aid funding, reducing access to education across the country. Read more >>
Recommended Reading: The PEN Ten Interviews
In our latest PEN Ten interviews, award-winning reporter Alia Dastagir spoke to us about her book, To Those Who Have Confused You To Be A Person, which documents and analyzes online abuse faced by 13 women. Ekow Eshun told us about The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them, a work of creative nonfiction that interrogates the Western imagination’s tendency to construe Black men as strangers. And Aaron John Curtis discussed his debut novel, Old School Indian, which tells the story of a young man who returns to his reservation in search of traditional healing after he is diagnosed with a rare fatal illness. Read more >>
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“For our world-renowned system of higher learning to survive this onslaught, we must stand shoulder-to-shoulder in its defense.” |
— PEN America's Laura Benitez and Jonathan Friedman
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