Blog
Filter By:
Advocacy • Analysis • Blog • Commentary • Drama • Essay • Event • Feature • Fiction • Graphic Narrative • Interview • Memoir • News • Obituary • Open Letter • Poetry • Press Release • Profile
Browse By Series:
PEN Poetry Series • Prison Writing • The PEN Ten Interviews • Illustrated PEN • Pen Pals • The PEN World
Browse By Email Subscription:
PEN America News • Educational Censorship News • Works of Justice
Open Destiny of Life
Let me put it this way: I went to school to poetry—that was where I learned how to write. People learn to write by doing various things. I suppose… More
Real People: Dorothy Allison on Steinbeck
You write like a man, I was told. No, I write like a dyke. Except—except sometimes I try to write like John Steinbeck. I try to go from everyday… More
Paul Auster on Samuel Beckett: Laughter in the Dark
We went on to talk about other things, and then, out of the blue, ten or fifteen minutes later, apropos of nothing, he leaned forward across the table and… More
WiPC Case List: January to June 2004
The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN was set up in 1960 as a result of mounting concern about attempts to silence critical voices around the world… More
The Language Barrier
About a year after my father was transferred from the American Consulate in Montreal to the Consulate in Salonika, Greece, my brothers and I began to speak to our… More
Multiple Rebirths
This talk was presented, in slightly different form, at a PEN Tribute to Gabriel García Márquez. It is often remarked that Gabriel García Márquez’s writings are read by people… More
November & Persephone
A golden shredding of light, slow unfolding, the airy geometry of trees revealed in a day by day transfiguration of tough vegetable matter into clearer and clearer frames of radiance, until you scarcely know… More
Sube a Nacer Conmigo
Buenas noches. Thirty years ago, when Pablo Neruda was buried in Santiago’s Cementerio General, I was living just a few miles away from where his body was being lowered… More
The Holy Ghost’s Life of Writing
The Holy Ghost's Life of WritingI think the Holy Ghost has writtennot only the Bible but all books.—George Bernard ShawNo staring out the windows, no sharpening pencils,no torn-up pages,… More
On American Language and Culture
People in this country understand that we’re a nation made up of foreigners; that’s our identity. And those of us who have chosen to live in New York City… More