Welcome to our new PEN America newsletter. We’ve done some soul searching in celebration of our 100th year, which means we’ve rethought how best to share our news with you in the years ahead. We may be centenarians, but we are rising to new challenges each day.
This newsletter is where we will celebrate the writers and artists who shape our culture, while also sharing our fight for free expression in the United States and around the world. In the past, we created separate newsletters to highlight those different parts of our mission, but today we know our mission is singular. Together, we celebrate. Together, we fight.
Thank you for joining us.
Lisa Tolin
Editorial Director
“Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control.”
Florida schools are busy banning books, even as Gov. Ron DeSantis calls it a “nasty hoax.” Recently more than 80 titles were removed from Martin County schools, including 20 by Jodi Picoult and nine in James Patterson’sMaximum Ride series. More than 2,800 people sent letters to the school board via PEN America. See the full list of banned books >>
Send a letter to Martin County>>
It's Not a 'Hoax'
DeSantis claims that only “pornographic and inappropriate” materials have been banned from Florida classrooms. Nearly everything he said in his press conference and “fact” sheet was untrue.
Oscar Hokeah and Morgan Talty won the awards for debut writers at the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards for Calling for a Blanket Dance and Night of the Living Rez. Both write about the Indigenous experience in America.
Our Prison and Justice Writing Program uplifts the voices of incarcerated writers from across the country. In the program's latest newsletter, Kwaneta Harris writes from solitary confinement about how labeling medical and health-related books' "sexual content" prohibits incarcerated women from understanding their bodies.
THE MAGIC CITY POETRY FESTIVAL PRESENTS: AN EVENING WITH PATRICIA SMITH
Tuesday, April 4, 2023 | 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm CT
Virtual Event
Join PEN Birmingham at the Magic City Poetry Festival for a digital conversation with award-winning poet Patricia Smith. This webinar is free, open to the public, and sponsored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts and PEN Birmingham.
We co-sponsored a read-in in Tallahassee featuring authors Alicia D. Williams, Phil Bildner, Dhonielle Clayton, and Ellen Oh, along with activists Jack Petocz, Olivia Solomon, Will Larkins, Tallulah Brand and Michelle Jarrett.
Julie Trébault, director of our Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), spoke at the United Nations after ARC, PEN America and PEN International issued a joint statement with 183 other organizations on the cultural rights of migrant artists.
Suzanne Nossel, our CEO: Bans on drag shows are a chilling attack on attack free speech (Guardian)
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Museum Director Who Stayed Behind to Defend Ukrainian Literature (New Yorker)
Hong Kong Bans Rapper Who Joked About Hurting the Feelings of the Chinese People (Radio Free Asia)
I Wrote One Of The Few Tween Books About Down Syndrome. A Couple Of Sentences May Get It Banned (HuffPost)
Two of the Country’s Best Translators Are Married – And Competing for the Same Big Prize (Los Angeles Times)
Book bans are a means of oppressing girls (Teen Vogue)
TRENDING ON PEN AMERICA
PEN America member Jodi Picoult has been a champion in the fight against book bans, and now has made her TikTok debut with a viral video viewed by more than 1.4 million people. In it, she described how 20 of her books had been pulled from shelves in Martin County, Florida, due to complaints from one parent.
