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World Press Freedom Day: Austin, TX

World Press Freedom Day 2019 Banner

Join PEN America Members and local journalists as they gather to celebrate and recognize World Press Freedom Day in Austin on Wednesday, May 8th!

Join PEN America Members Chaitali Sen and Tim Staley, PEN America Membership Engagement Manager, Grace Linczer, supporters, journalists, and local allies for a Member meet-and-greet and discuss how to best support a free press at the local level. The event will feature a reading of the PEN America Press Freedom Manifesto, which we hope will serve to inspire and unite writers across all genres at in support of journalism as a vital form of storytelling. More details to come.

The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.  

Want to spread the word? Download the PEN America Press Freedom Manifesto and visit our digital activation toolkit!


Grace LinczerGrace Linczer is the membership engagement manager at PEN America, where she acts as liaison with diverse PEN America communities nationwide as the organization expands its programmatic reach across the country. In this role, Linczer works to create meaningful pathways of engagement for PEN America Members across the country, providing them connection, support, and facilitative care as they conceptualize and execute PEN America programming in their communities.

Prior to joining PEN America, Linczer was part of the Member Engagement team at Amnesty International USA where she supported a nationwide community of activists around the organization’s priority human rights campaigns. Linczer graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Sociocultural Anthropology and International Peace Studies. Time spent working among immigrant communities in Italy was formative in shaping Linczer’s commitment to human rights advocacy, grassroots activism, and storytelling as a means of community building.

Chaitali SenChaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. Her debut novel, The Pathless Sky, was published by Europa Editions in 2015. Short stories, reviews, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Ecotone, Shenandoah, New England Review, New Ohio Review, Colorado Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Catapult, LitHub, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, Brooklyn Magazine, and many other publications. She is a graduate of the Hunter College MFA program in Fiction and founder of the interview series, Borderless: Conversations in Art, Action, and Justice.

Tim Staley is the executive director of the Austin Public Library Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the Austin Public Library.

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