Plus: recordings from our fall season of PEN Out Loud

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** Celebrate Kink and The Removed with PEN America this February ([link removed])
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PEN Out Loud: R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell with Melissa Febos and Brandon Taylor ([link removed])
Tuesday 2/9 | 8pm ET/5pm PT

Bestselling authors R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell join PEN Out Loud to launch their dynamic anthology of short fiction, Kink: Stories. A singular collection that illustrates “love, desire, BDSM, and sexual kinks in all their glory,” Kink features some of contemporary fiction’s finest writers. The two editors of the anthology will be joined in conversation with contributors Melissa Febos and Brandon Taylor to discuss the book’s “moving dispatches from across the sexual spectrum.” BUY NOW ›› ([link removed])

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PEN Out Loud: Brandon Hobson with Rebecca Makkai ([link removed])
Tuesday 2/16 | 8pm ET/5pm PT

National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson joins PEN Out Loud to celebrate his latest novel, The Removed. Weaving together multiple first-person narrators and Cherokee folklore, the novel tells the story of a Cherokee family 15 years after an unjust police shooting of one of the family’s three children. Hobson will be joined in conversation with Pulitzer Prize finalist Rebecca Makkai to discuss the novel and its “meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories.”
BUY NOW ›› ([link removed])


** In Vanity Fair: Madeleine L’Engle’s Private Correspondence With Ahmad Rahman ([link removed])
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“Whatever life has in store, I move into this new year with less bitterness, and therefore more love, more life, in my heart because of your friendship.” —Ahmad Rahman
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Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, was one of PEN America's first Prison Writing Mentors, Her personal and literary connection with Ahmad Rahman, an incarcerated Black Panther leader & scholar, lives on in PEN America's L’Engle-Rahman Prize for Mentorship ([link removed]) .

Read more about L'Engle and Rahman's correspondence and the history of PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program in Vanity Fair ›› ([link removed])


** Dare to Dream: A Reading with DREAMing Out Loud ([link removed])
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Thursday, February 18, 2021 | 6:30pm ET
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Join PEN America, the Dream Project, and Busboys and Poets for a virtual reading with the students and teaching artists of DREAMing Out Loud ([link removed]) . Donauta Watson and Evelyn Cruz Santiago, alumni of the program, will perform their poetry alongside founder and award-winning Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue and Charlie Vázquez, a poet and novelist who formerly served as deputy chair of the Bronx Council on the Arts. Register here ›› ([link removed])


** Recordings from PEN Out Loud's Fall 2020 Season ([link removed])
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Did you miss the Fall 2020 season of PEN Out Loud? Recordings of our conversations from last season are available now!

› PEN Out Loud: Yaa Gyasi with Roxane Gay ([link removed])

› PEN Out Loud: Ayad Akhtar with Ben Rhodes ([link removed])

› PEN Out Loud: Claudia Rankine with Lauren Michele Jackson ([link removed])

› PEN Out Loud: Marilynne Robinson with Alexander Chee ([link removed])


** PEN America's Writing for Justice Fellowship: Apply by February 15 ([link removed])
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PEN America’s Writing for Justice Fellowship commissions writers—emerging or established—to create written works of lasting merit that illuminate critical issues related to mass incarceration and catalyze public debate. Learn more about the recent accomplishments of past Writing for Justice Fellows ([link removed]) to the landscape of both literature and advocacy, and apply for this year's Fellowship by February 15, 2021. ([link removed])

The PEN Ten ([link removed])

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The PEN Ten with Renée Watson: ([link removed]) “Find your people. Writing is very isolating, and you will need one or two people to lean on, share work with. You will need them to cheer you on when you want to give up.”

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The PEN Ten with Matthew Salesses: ([link removed]) “A person’s identity and writing are negotiations with culture and power. Workshop is often an intense microcosm of this relationship.”


The PEN Pod ([link removed])
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Uncovering Underrepresented Realities with Lucas Rocha and Vitor Martins: ([link removed]) “What I hope readers can get from this book is this message: It’s okay if you’re not there yet. It’s okay to ask for help."

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Challenging and Critiquing White Feminism with Koa Beck: ([link removed]) “White feminism as a practice has always shown a very keen understanding of imagery and how to use it—marketing and what we would now think of as branding.”

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Learning from Russian Short Fiction with George Saunders: ([link removed]) “If we ever thought that storytelling wasn’t vital to a culture, we’ve just been reminded that it is."


** From Our Partners
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The Center for Black Literature: Donna Hill in Conversation with Kalisha Buckhanon ([link removed])
Thursday 2/11 | 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT

Join the Center for Black Literature for a conversation between Essence bestselling author Donna Hill with author Kalisha Buckhanon, about Hill's latest novel, Confessions in B-Flat. Register here ›› ([link removed])

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Kweli: The Art of the Essay with Cinelle Barnes ([link removed])
Wednesday 2/17 - Wednesday 3/24 | 6:30pm ET

This six-week course, taught by Cinelle Barnes, editor of A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South, is intended for nonfiction writers of all levels seeking to begin or complete essays or memoirs that explore their relationship with a physical environment. Register here ›› ([link removed])

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Kweli: Layers of Revision with Nadia Owusu ([link removed])
Saturday 2/27 | 2pm ET

In this class, taught by Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks, writers will bring a short excerpt of their work and, together, go through a layered revision process, paying attention to elements such as sensory detail, eliminating unnecessary words, the balance of summary and scene, and strengthening voice and point of view. Register here ›› ([link removed])

Enter Narrative Magazine's Winter Story Contest by March 31 ([link removed])
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“Narrative has made a special place for nurturing talent that will be the literature for years to come.” —Tobias Wolff

Narrative Magazine's Winter Contest is open to all fiction and nonfiction writers. Learn more and submit now before the deadline of March 31 ›› ([link removed])

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