PEN America works tirelessly to defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture. Here are some of the latest ways PEN America is speaking out.
- Just coming off of a very busy Banned Books Week 2024, we recapped all the ways we came together with the community of parents, teens, educators, legislators all across America to rally for the right to read. Here’s a recap of the week.
- With just four weeks left for the election, PEN America hosted a crucial webinar on 7 top disinformation dangers with experts and journalists including from The New York Times and NPR. “It’s like every fact-check is a drop in the ocean when you’re fighting against this much of a deluge of disinformation,” said Nina Jankowicz, an expert on disinformation and co-founder of the American Sunlight Project, who moderated the panel.
- Diana Weymar, founder of the Tiny Pricks Project, sat down with us to discuss her new book Crafting a Better World. Collaborating with fellow craftivists and organizations, including PEN America, the book calls on people to pick up their preferred way to craft and gather for political action.
- While reading banned books is one way to resist, PEN America put out a list of 6 documentaries that shine light on not only the severity of educational censorship, but also on the people and groups fighting against it on the frontlines.
- In a new Facts Forward interview, Maritza Félix of Connecta Arizona, talked to Kurt Sampsel, PEN America’s Senior Program Manager, Disinformation and Community Engagement. A news-you-can-use service, Connecta Arizona factchecks information for the crossborder communities, with one foot in Arizona and the other in Mexico and Latin America. “We have created the infrastructure for listening, and for having conversations, and for debunking without the stigma,” Félix said.
- PEN America called protests that led to the withdrawal of the book, Understanding Hamas and Why It Matters, from a Santa Monica bookstore and its subsequent closing deeply troubling. “One can raise alarm bells over a bookstore’s decision to stock a book without demanding that it be withdrawn for all, and without empowering all those who wish to police speech on the basis of viewpoint,” said Allison Lee, PEN America Los Angeles managing director.
- PEN America condemned the removal of Aisha Abdel Gawad from her position as the Wilton Library writer-in-residence. This followed Gawad’s decision to withdraw from a panel at the Albany Book Festival over its moderator, Elisa Albert’s comments on the Israel-Gaza war. “At a time of deep division and distress, literature must be a bridge, not a border, and we should hear more from writers, not less,” said a statement from PEN America.
- PEN America filed an amicus brief in support of University of Washington professor, Stuart Reges, who brought a lawsuit alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights. The university removed his version of the land acknowledgement statement it had mandated be included in the syllabus after students found it offensive. “While universities have a responsibility to ensure that their learning environments are inclusive and equally accessible to all students, censorship of offensive speech is never the answer to address harm,” said Katie Blankenship, senior legal counsel and director of PEN America’s Florida office.
- PEN America called new laws restricting sex education in schools in Florida dangerous and Orwellian. Following HB1069 passed last year, schools were directed to further narrow their curriculum by not using certain words and diagrams. “These new directives are so chilling that it’s impossible to see how teachers would be able to instruct students about sexual abuse or consent altogether, much less safe sex or provide basic information about human development,” said Blankenship said.
- In a new PEN Ten interview, Forrest Gander spoke to World Voices Festival & Literary Programs Coordinator, Sarah Dillard, about his new novel-poem Mojave Ghost (New Directions, 2024). “It’s in our most intimate relationships that we discover the composite nature of the human soul, how we’re built from many separate identities,” he said.
