Taking Place During Banned Books Week, Atwood to be Interviewed on Stage as Ceremony Honors Ten Authors
(HYDE PARK, NY) – The Eleanor Roosevelt Center today announces the winners of the 2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature, recognizing authors whose works advance human rights amid a surge in book bans and censorship. Ten honorees include best-selling author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), who will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award and will be interviewed on stage at the ceremony Oct. 11. Ticket sales to the public available through Ticketron start July 24. Buy tickets here.
With book bans in public schools rising to levels unseen since the McCarthy era Red Scare of the 1950s, the Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards ceremony in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. will be presented jointly with PEN America, the writers and free expression group, which has documented spiking book bans since 2021. Author Jennifer Finney Boylan, PEN America’s president, will be the keynote speaker.
The ceremony at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House will celebrate authors who have championed intellectual freedom and the fight against censorship during Banned Books Week 2025, October 5-11, an annual event that highlights the freedom to read and the censorship of books in libraries and schools. Eleanor Roosevelt was an ardent opponent of censorship, writing in a 1959 column: “I don’t think any book should be banned by a censor. We should try to educate the public so that it will not buy books that have no literary value. I think an educated public is quite capable of doing its own censoring.”
In addition to Atwood, Becky Calzada, a Texas librarian and freedom to read advocate, will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Literary Freedom Award. Other honorees have created vital works of literature that have experienced challenges and been banned by local municipalities, governments, or school boards. Awardees include Malinda Lo for Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Juno Dawson (video acceptance) for This Book Is Gay, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell for And Tango Makes Three, John Green (video acceptance) for Looking for Alaska, and Matthew A. Cherry & Vashti Harrison for Hair Love.
At the ceremony, the authors will be joined on stage by Boylan; Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, and Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT).
The Bardavon 1869 Opera House is an iconic theater beloved by Eleanor and is situated a stone’s throw from the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park, NY.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Bravery in Literature follows on from three decades of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center honoring individuals who embrace her call to build a better world through humanitarian efforts in education, advocacy, social justice, and civil and human rights. Eleanor Roosevelt was a prolific writer, authoring hundreds of articles and essays and 28 books in her lifetime. She was passionate about supporting the role of libraries and the importance of access to information as an essential element of democracy. She tirelessly championed the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become the foundation of international human rights law. The rights in Article 19 on intellectual freedom are at the very heart of this award.
Since 2021, PEN America’s Freedom to Read Program has documented nearly 16,000 book bans in public schools nationwide. The group, established in 1922, has raised national awareness of the censorship campaign mobilized by conservative groups that predominantly target books about race and racism by authors of color and also books on LGBTQ+ topics as well as those for older readers that have sexual references or discuss sexual violence. The program keeps track of book bans in its Index of School Book Bans. The campaign of censorship reaching nearly all 50 states has not been seen in the United States since the Red Scare era of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
About the Eleanor Roosevelt Center
A 501c3 non-profit organization, the Eleanor Roosevelt Center honors Eleanor Roosevelt’s values in ways that tackle today’s challenges. The organization is dedicated to breathing new life into the precedents set and the legacies left behind by the First Lady of the World, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. We strive to be Eleanor Roosevelt’s heart, mind, and voice in realizing a better world—a world of acceptance, opportunity, dignity, and respect for all.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s passion for civil rights and human rights changed the world and inspired generations. Intellectual freedom was at the heart of her work. She believed that a society cannot “fulfill its commitment to education without taking seriously its commitment to the right to seek, receive, and impart information” and that discourse among diverse voices is foundational to democracy.
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About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Other organizations sponsoring the awards include: Freedom To Read Foundation, Oblong Books.
Press Contacts
At the Eleanor Roosevelt Center: Samantha Shapley, managing director, [email protected], 845.797-0957
At PEN America: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], 201-247-5057