A Victory for the Freedom to Read |
A federal judge ordered the Department of Defense to restore all books banned in five schools at U.S. military installations, a solid first step in a long road to restoring and protecting students’ freedom to read. As highlighted in our latest report, The Normalization of Books Bans, several executive orders from the White House were used as justification for removing almost 600 books from Department of Defense Education Activity schools. The Stop Censoring Military Families Act would reinstate books removed from all DODEA schools and protect against future censorship.
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Misogyny and the Manosphere |
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Cynthia Miller-Idriss’ Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism is an urgent examination of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West. In a PEN Ten interview, Miller-Idriss takes a deep dive into online abuse, the relationship between online extremism and book bans, and how adults can talk to the young men and boys in their lives about this phenomenon.
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Apply Now for Emergency Funds |
PEN America’s U.S. Writers Aid Initiative offers grants for writers in the United States facing acute financial need following an emergency situation. Applications are open to fiction and nonfiction authors, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, translators, and journalists. |
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This week’s Member Spotlight features Pieces You’ll Never Get Back by PEN America member Samina Ali. Ali’s memoir is both harrowing and redemptive—a new mother must reconstruct her shattered mind, her relationship to her religious upbringing, and her life’s purpose. Both deeply personal and steeped in religious thought, Pieces You’ll Never Get Back is a uniquely propulsive, searching, and ultimately, inspiring work of memoir.
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November 21 & 22, 2025
Free
In a city near you!
When free expression is under threat, the best defense might be free expression. A group of artists including visual artist Dread Scott, playwright Lynn Nottage, and novelist Hari Kunzru are calling for events beginning Nov. 21-22 as part of a “Fall of Freedom” action in museums, libraries, book stores, theaters, and concert halls across the country – each independently organized but united in their defense of expression and art.
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Thu. October 30, 2025
3:00 PM ET
Online
Free Join us for a discussion with composer Huang Ruo, Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, and Chinese Heritage Foundation’s Pearl Lam Bergad to dig deeper into the layers of translation that bring The Monkey King (猴王悟空) to life in this pulse-of-the-moment contemporary adaptation. |
How to Build Safer Newsrooms and Protect Journalists |
Thu. November 13, 2025
12:00 PM ET
Online
Free Can newsroom leaders better protect and support journalists facing online harassment and other safety challenges? Whatever the size of your news organization, you’ll leave this session equipped with practical, actionable steps to know how. |
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| "Nobody actually knows the future."
As Margaret Atwood accepted a lifetime achievement award named for the late first lady at the Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards, she emphasized why the choices we make today are so crucial for the future: "When you're halfway down the slippery slope, it's not far to the bottom." |
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Urging the Supreme Court to Take Up Book Bans
In a story last week, Publisher's Weekly addressed the potential for the Llano Texas book ban case to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to PEN America's Elly Brinkley, writers' inability "to reach their audiences in a democratic way is not just a financial, reputational, or career harm—it has a chilling effect upon speech and dampening of the work they want to do more broadly." Read more >>
From Banned Author to Banned Playwright
PEN America board member Jodi Picoult stood up for her play “Between the Lines” after a production of it was canceled in Gas City, Indiana. Read more in the AP >> An Honor from New College
PEN America’s Amy Reid was named an “Honorary Alumna” of New College, the Florida honors college where she worked for 30 years. Reid had been director of the school’s Gender Studies program, which was disbanded in 2023 after Gov. Ron DeSantis targeted the small liberal arts school by placing six hand-picked conservatives on its 13-member Board of Trustees. Read more >>
Recommended Reading: Girl Gangs and Found Families
Set in 1970s Singapore, the new adult novel When They Burned the Butterfly by YA author Wen-yi Lee introduces readers to a changing city; neighborhoods are rebuilt, Western culture is promoted, and gangsters are the only ones using outlawed magic inherited from their ancestors. The PEN Ten Interview >> Censoring a Censorship Conference
Organizers at Utah’s Weber State University canceled a two-day conference on censorship after the administration claimed that they risked running afoul of a state law unless the event itself was censored. “The campaign to exert ideological control over higher education turns more Kafkaesque by the day,” said PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman. Read more >>
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"We are not protecting kids. We are robbing them of materials that we use to deal with an increasingly complex world." |
— Author Jodi Picoult on having a musical based on her work cancelled |
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