A person with long, curly hair poses for a portrait against a neutral background. They are wearing a patterned blouse, layered necklaces, and have a calm expression.

Sarah Dillard

Manager, World Voices Festival & Literary Programs

Sarah Dillard (she/her) is the World Voices Festival and Literary Programs manager at PEN America. She received her BA with honors in Literary Arts from Brown University and her MSW in social work from Columbia University. Before joining PEN, she worked at SAFELab developing and facilitating a technology program for formerly incarcerated youth. Her creative writing has been published in Five on the Fifth Magazine and her academic writing has been published in the Columbia Social Work Review and at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.


Articles by Sarah Dillard

A smiling woman with long brown hair is pictured next to the book cover for A Sun Behind Us / Un sol caído avanza, which features a sunset with a dark silhouette of mountains and text in English and Spanish.
Writing as Craft
Thursday December 11

María Auxiliadora Álvarez’s Collection Honors Her Father’s Legacy 

My great challenge was to build my own dwelling, symbolic and real, spiritual and tangible, and interconnected with the spiritual universe.

A woman with long dark hair and bold lipstick is pictured next to the book cover for When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee, which features a womans face and a butterfly with red and gold tones.
Writing as Craft
Thursday October 23

Girl Gangs, Found Families, and Creating Kinship Outside of the Mainstream

Community is a key form of empowerment that disenfranchised people can attain.

A woman with long dark hair and red lipstick stands in front of a red circle. Next to her is a colorful book cover titled Maggie; Or, A Man and A Woman Walk Into A Bar by Katie Yee, featuring bold blue and pink text.
Writing as Craft
Friday August 1

Humor for Dark Times | The PEN Ten Interview with Katie Yee

The way the book deals with time was my attempt to mimic the experience of free-falling through grief.