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.
- PEN America is honoring iconic actor, producer and independent publisher Sarah Jessica Parker with the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, and Jon Yaged, chief executive officer of Macmillan Publishers, with the Business Visionary award at this year’s gala. Authors Jodi Picoult and Dinaw Mengestu, both PEN America trustees, will serve as literary co-chairs of the event happening on May 15. Read our press release here, and the AP’s coverage of it here.
- In honor of Black History Month, PEN America released a reading list curated by staff spanning multiple genres and themes. Here is what you should be reading this month.
- This Valentine’s Day, PEN America is advocating for the right to read romance at public school libraries. One of the most banned genres, we released a list of most banned romance books. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass topped the list. Read the full list here. Read our statement, which was covered by PEOPLE magazine here.
- Also to celebrate the month of love and to bring awareness, PEN America launched Shelf Love, a new series of interviews with romance book authors. We kicked it off discussing why romance matters with The New York Times bestselling author of STEMisnist novels, Ali Hazelwood. Read our interview here.
- The National Park Service removed references to the word “transgender” from the Stonewall National Monument website in apparent compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order. Thanks to internet archives, we have restored the now deleted list of resources including books that were removed. See it here.
- PEN America’s editorial director, Lisa Tolin, released a new children’s picture book, Can You Imagine? The Art and Life of Yoko Ono. Illustrated by Yas Imamura, the book is a portrait of the artist, following her from her childhood, through her romance with John Lennon and beyond. PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman interviewed Tolin, read it here.
- PEN America’s campus free speech experts Kristin Shahverdian and Aileen Lambert looked at how Harvard cracked down on study-ins staged as peaceful protests. Read the full story here.
- Shahverdian also wrote about the disturbing disturbing – and accelerating – trend of cancelations on college campuses, with all manner of events being called off, seemingly because they are related to race, LGBTQ+ identities or “DEI” — as conceived by its critics. Read the blog post.
- PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program assistant, Clare Carter, wrote about how accusations of low returns on investment is being used as an excuse to censor academic programs. Read the blogpost here.
- PEN America published a joint statement marking the fifth anniversary of the crackdown on the “Xiamen gathering”, a private gathering that about 20 Chinese human rights defenders and lawyers convened in Xiamen, China in December 2019 to discuss the situation of human rights and civil society in China. Read the letter to the Chinese government here.
- PEN America is appalled by Israeli authorities’ raid on the Palestinian Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem, and outraged that its owners were detained and now banned from their own shop. Read our statement here.
- PEN America sent a letter to Florida Senate President Ben Albritton, asking him to reject a bill which explicitly targets racial and LGBTQ+ identities and symbols, and attempts to ban flags such as the Pride flag that reflect these symbols. “We urge the Senate to defeat this effort to deprive racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people of visibility, expression, and connection to community. It has no place in a multicultural society,” said our Florida Director Katie Blankenship. Read more about our letter here.
- On President Trump blocking an AP reporter from the Oval Office, PEN America’s Journalism & Disinformation director, Tim Richardson said, “Barring AP journalists from an official presidential event because of the news outlet’s editorial decisions is an affront to the First Amendment and a free press. It is retribution, plain and simple, and a shameful attempt to bully the press into ideological compliance.” His statement was quoted in coverage by The Washington Post and the AP. Read our full statement here.
- PEN America denounced the Vietnamese government’s indictment of author and journalist Truong Huy San (also known by his pen name Huy Duc) and urged his immediate release and the dismissal of all charges against him. Read our response here.
- Martiza L. Felix, founder and director of Connecta Arizona, a Spanish-language news service, wrote about how her newsroom battled polarization and political violence in 2024, making space for dialogue. Read her story here.
- PEN America criticized a proposed North Dakota bill for ending the protections offered through tenure at universities by involving administrative politics into the process for post-tenure review of faculty. Read why we are concerned here. PEN America’s Amy Reid was quoted in a story by Forbes and Inside Higher Ed.
- For the last interview in our Facts Forward series, which focused on tackling disinformation, PEN America’s Kurt Sampsel spoke to Mónica Guzmán of Braver Angels, a nonprofit organization focused on bridging political divides. Read the full interview here.
- Malcolm Tariq, director of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program, interviewed author Alan Michael Parker on his latest book, Bingo Bango Boingo. Read the PEN Ten interview here.
