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
A Time to Forget
THE SETTING is the living room of an apartment filled, almost cluttered, with a mixture of modern and old-fashioned furniture—vases, lamps, bowls, small tables and cabinets containing all manner… More
Knowing a Place
You can’t love a place unless you know itreally know it like you were born theremoved there young had time to explorewalk the streets talk to the peopleNew… More
Just Another Death
I sit on my bunk as the minutes tick by. The count should have cleared over half an hour ago. Something’s up. In a place where timing and routine… More
To Be Beaten On Your Birthday Means You’re Loved
I was kicked out of the dormitories, moved back to the cellblock I had lived on before living on the dorms. All my worldly possessions—all of which fit into… More
Forest Clayton
The FanOn my mother’s dresserSits an old brittle photographThat flirts with the fan thatWas bought to soothe pain.Shadows hide behind her curtains;They sneak peeks to see if sheWill ever… More
The Seeds of Jasper Hate
A walloping THUMP startled me. It felt like a sledge hammer crashing against the wall my bunk was bolted to. I fumbled my book and leapt to my feet,… More
Static Night
Apartment 25A stepped back from Jake as he stepped up from the parking lot. The too-crisp edges of the cheap apartment door flexed as if laughing. Next to it,… More
Normando Hernández González Honored by PEN
PEN American Center, the largest center of the international literary organization dedicated to defending freedom of expression around the globe, awarded Cuban writer and independent journalist Normando Hernández González… More
Iranian Independent Publishing Community Gets Fifth Annual Jeri Laber Award
Members of the independent publishing community in Iran, facing increased harassment and persecution under the current regime, have been named by the Association of American Publishers’ International Freedom to… More
Campaign for Reader Privacy Welcomes Testimony by “Gagged” Librarian
Following dramatic testimony today from a Connecticut librarian who successfully challenged an abusive FBI National Security Letter (NSL), organizations representing booksellers, librarians, publishers and writers called on Congress to… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
