Need a last-minute gift or book recommendation? Check out our 2022 Literary Awards Longlists! This year's slate of longlisted titles celebrates the year’s most extraordinary new voices and living legends of literature, made up of categories including the novel, short story collection, translation, poetry, science writing, essay, biography, and more. Stay tuned for our finalists announcement, coming in late January 2022. See the Longlists here ››
Check Out Our Favorite Reading Lists of the Year
Time to curl up with a book and get cozy. Revisit some of PEN America's picks, with a look back at our favorite reading lists from this year.
Power to the People: A World Voices Festival Reading List
The theme from our 2021 World Voices Festival, “Power to the People,” is a phrase that dates back to the 1960s, a time of reckoning and revolution. It continues to resonate in our current moment, as we contend with the question of how to challenge and reframe the histories underlying today’s inequities. The books in this reading list push boundaries, challenge inherited narratives, and interrogate where power comes from.
Words and Actions: A Pride Month Reading List from ONE Archives Foundation
For Pride Month, we partnered with the ONE Archives Foundation to create a reading list as an extension of their exhibition, "Pride Publics: Words and Actions," in which artists, writers, and community organizers submitted portraits and short texts, creating a wide-scale portrait of multigenerational queer and trans lives. This reading list, which includes a wide range of classics as well as more recently published works, comes from some of the artists included in the exhibition.
Protecting the Freedom to Learn: A Banned Books Week Reading List
In September, for Banned Books Week, we uplifted the books, authors, teachers, and writers who insist on telling stories and examining history with honesty and complexity, spotlighting 10 of the 19 books slated for removal or suspension in Leander, TX at the time. Many of these books have been authored by women and people of color and discuss themes of racial discrimination, immigration, LGBTQ+ relationships, mental health, and sexual assault and violence.
Resistance, Resilience, and Reclamation: A Native American Heritage Month Reading List
For Native American Heritage Month in November, we put together a reading list highlighting books that spotlight Native American writers and their experiences. Featuring novels, short story collections, memoirs, poetry collections, and more, this list celebrates Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and vitality.
The Emerging Voices Fellowship provides a virtual five-month immersive mentorship program for early-career writers from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the publishing world. The program is committed to cultivating the careers of Black writers, and serves writers who identify as Indigenous, persons of color, LGBTQ+, immigrants, writers with disabilities, and those living outside of urban centers. Applications for this year’s fellowship are open from January 1–31, 2022.
In our latest installment of the “PEN Pals” conversation series, begun by the PEN Children’s and Young Adult Books Committee (CYAB) as a response to recent efforts to ban books and intimidate teachers and librarians, authors Stacey Lee and Padma Venkatraman discuss the need for more diverse representations in literature, Asian American history, and what reading more widely can offer us. Read their conversation here ››
The PEN Ten with the 2021 PEN Prison Writing Award Winners: “When I first arrived in prison, writing was the thing that made me different. It was my isolation as much as it was my escape from this concrete crypt. I felt like no one understood me, and that was why I wrote and one reason I still do. I have met people who have cared for and validated and encouraged me. It is so much more than community—it is also acceptance and empowerment.”
The PEN Ten with Francesco Pacifico: “Different things that transpire in your life require different approaches. Sometimes you know the names of what you’re attempting to write, sometimes you ignore them and have to hunt for them. When writing a book, there are times when you need to have a schedule and others when you need to feel free.”
Each quarterly issue of Alta Journal celebrates California and the West with award-winning reporting, fiction, poetry, reviews, and cartoons. From hot topics to cold cases, Alta is an entertaining, enlightening read. Subscribe now and Alta will donate $15 to PEN America.
Get More News, Events, and Updates from PEN America ›
You are receiving this e-mail because you opted in at PEN.org or a PEN America-sponsored event.
