This year is PEN America’s 100th anniversary, and to celebrate, we have a new reading list highlighting members of the organization who have produced some of the most influential works of the past century. To track this evolution, PEN America has also curated an anniversary exhibit, PEN America at 100: Celebrating a Century of Defending the Written Word 1922-2022, which opens today and runs till October 9, 2022. We hope to see you there!
DREAMing Out Loud is a paid, tuition-free creative writing workshop series for young immigrant writers, primarily those who are undocumented, DACA recipients, and/or DREAMers who came to the United States when they were children. This year, we sat down with Aria Gallo and Luz Aguirre from the 2022 cohort. We discussed writing as an outlet, the importance of storytelling, and the difference DREAMing Out Loud has made in their lives. Along with the rest of their cohort, their writing can be found in the DREAMing Out Loud Anthology Vol. 4 made available on Amazon.
"Everything that I’d done—the curriculum, the facilitation style, the dedication to the script—failed to center the storytellers. Instead, my ego was the thing I had set up to serve. It was time to get out of my bag and set the former professor aside. I remixed the curriculum, lesson plans and syllabus to reflect storytelling in all its forms. " Read an excerpt from Nicole Shawan Junior's piece in PEN America's handbook, The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison, featured in Teachers & Writers Magazine. Read the piece ››
Don't forget to submit to the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards, which are open through August 1!This coming year, we will confer some $380,000 to writers and translators at all stages of their careers. We hope you'll help us spread the word and encourage the submission of your favorite books published in the 2022 calendar year. Learn more about submitting here ››
Join PEN America and the University of Pennsylvania for a reading of Ukrainian poetry in the original language and in translation. Moderated by Kevin Platt of the University of Pennsylvania and with support from Polina Sadovskaya and Rachel Landau of PEN America, the event will include five poets reading works in Ukrainian with accompaniment and input by literary translators in English. This reading is part of the PEN/Penn Your Language My Ear translation project, which builds cultural bridges and amplifies poetic texts from across Eurasia. Learn more and register here ››
Friday 8/5 – Sunday 8/7
McNichols Civic Center Building
144 W Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80202
PEN America Denver is proud to sponsor the [margins.] Literary Conference. Brought to you by The Word, [margins.] was created in 2020, by and for people on the margins, promoting the inclusive representation of experiences in literature for communities who have historically been excluded. The first of its kind, [margins.] is a conference, bookfair, and literary festival. [margins.] brings together writers, storytellers, and wordsmiths at all levels of experience to explore emerging trends in literature and the many approaches to storytelling, visioning and creating, education, inclusion, advocacy, organizing, and building community. Learn more and register here ››
Tuesday 8/16 – Tuesday 8/30 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm ET
Digital Event
August is around the corner, and it’s time to celebrate Women in Translation (#WiT) Month again! This reading series was initiated by blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014 to raise awareness of translated literature by women, queer, and nonbinary authors, and promote gender and cultural diversity in literary publishing. Organized under the support of the PEN America Translation Committee, these events will bring together three panels of translators, joined by their authors, working in a diversity of languages. The readings will be followed by a brief Q&A discussion, time-permitting. The Women in Translation Reading Series will take place on Zoom on three consecutive Tuesdays in August. Learn more and register here ››
The PEN Ten with Chinelo Okparanta:“Silence gives us this opportunity to hear the other side, an opportunity to empathize with others. If we are all talking at the same time, our ability to listen and empathize is compromised.”
The PEN Ten with K-Ming Chang:“The instability of memory and myth allow for infinite possibilities and beginnings, and I find that it’s my most accessible entry point into any story or narrative.”
![PEN Denver Presents: The [margins.] Literary Conference](https://mcusercontent.com/0809b771ad9123934911c8d9b/images/d3f34c51-1993-98f8-1789-898558bd9981.png)
