This Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month, PEN America is proud to present a reading list highlighting books from recent longlisters, finalists, winners, and judges of the PEN America Literary Awards. This list was curated by Literary Awards Intern Jasmine Gonzalez. In curating this list, Jasmine carefully selected titles that push boundaries and highlight the fluidity of identity in the Latinx community, even in instances where that fluidity has been met with resistance. As each of the titles here reveal, navigating the experiences that come with pushing boundaries and noticing fluidity can also lead to discoveries that might impact one’s self or community. Check out the reading list here ››
PEN Out Loud focuses on amplifying diverse voices and convening vital conversations with authors, poets, journalists, artists, and activists. Get tickets now for our remaining two events, featuring The New York Times Book Review's Pamela Paul with Lauren Oyler and Sandra Cisneros with Jaime Manrique.
Editor of The New York Times Book ReviewPamela Paul joins PEN Out Loud to launch her essay collection, 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet. In narratives about the pre-Internet age, the book offers “powerful insights into both the profound and the seemingly trivial things we’ve lost.” Paul will be in conversation with bestselling author and critic Lauren Oyler to discuss a fading era and provide “a guide to reclaiming just a little of the world IRL.” Learn more and register here ››
PEN America Literary Award recipient Sandra Cisneros joins PEN Out Loud to celebrate her new book Martita, I Remember You / Martita, te recuerdo. In a dual language edition, translated by Liliana Valenzuela, the novella tells the story of friendship between three women who over the years are dispersed over three continents. Cisneros will be in conversation with novelist, poet, essayist, and translator Jaime Manrique to discuss the book and its “tribute to the life-changing power of youthful friendship.” Learn more and register here ››
Join us in celebrating the 2021 Emerging Voices Fellows who will read together over two nights as the culmination of their fellowship. Mentors will provide personal introductions.
2021 EMERGING VOICES: THE FINAL READING, PART 1
Wednesday 10/27 | 5pm PT / 7pm CT / 8pm ET
Participating Fellows: KB, Nefertiti Asanti, Stephan Sebastian Herrera, Joanna Hong, Jerakah Greene, Lisa Lee Herrick, and Jenise Miller Participating Mentors: Jubi Arriola-Headley, Phillip B. Williams, Cristina Henríquez, Patricia Engel, Genevieve Hudson, Kao Kalia Yang, and Dana Johnson
2021 EMERGING VOICES: THE FINAL READING, PART 2
Thursday 10/28 | 5pm PT / 7pm CT / 8pm ET
Participating Fellows: Adrienne Oliver, Kimberly Nguyen, Tochukwu Okafor, Rochelle Marrett, Shanda McManus, Lilly Nguyen, and Ofelia Montelongo Participating Mentors: Chet’la Sebree, Paul Tran, Naomi Jackson, Maisy Card, Bridgett M. Davis, Nadia Owusu, and Jaquira Díaz
Tuesday 11/2 | 7:30pm ET Peter Jay Sharp Building, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
Join world-renowned artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei on the release date of his highly anticipated memoir, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. While being held by Chinese authorities in 2011, Ai decided to write a memoir about his extraordinary life and the legacy of his father Ai Qing, the nation’s most celebrated poet who was banished from society. At once ambitious and intimate, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression. Learn more and register here ››
The PEN Ten with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: “I am constantly cheerleading my young students to be brave and true. It’s scary to be true, even if you’re eight years old. It’s hard to trust that what you have to say, and your imperfect way of conveying it, are enough. But your experiences, your perspectives, are all you have. They will lead you to new, slightly different stories and ways of telling that are also yours. And they are absolutely enough.”
The PEN Pod: Spotlighting the Readers of New York with Uli Beutter Cohen
“My goal was to document voices that were not heard the same way that others were, and I wanted to make sure to hand a mic to my local neighbors, and to hear how they were living life. . . . I found that readers were just the most incredible, insightful people who had a lot to say.”
The PEN Pod: On Trauma, Identity, and Reinvention with Dan O’Brien
“Trauma forces reinvention of identity. It shatters your life—it changes who you are, obviously. Some of that is passive, some aspects of trauma obviously happen to you, some results of trauma are much more creative and constructive, in terms of trying to discover who you’re going to be as an individual and in my case, as a writer, post-cancer. It’s an ongoing process.”
The New Republic literary editor Laura Marsh talks to Amitav Ghosh about his new book, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. This event is part of TNR’s Salon Series, and will be hosted on Zoom. In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism's violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment, tracing our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean, as well as the history of the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. Buy tickets now ››
Together with the Talve-Goodman Family, One Story is happy to open submissions for the Adina Talve-Goodman Fellowship. This educational fellowship offers a year-long mentorship on the craft of fiction writing with One Story magazine. Our hope is to give a writer outside of the fold a significant boost in their career. Learn more and apply now ››
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