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 called the imminent executive order to close the Department of Education, an effort to dismantle democracy. “Reform is one thing. Decimating the department is another,” said Hadar Harris, managing director of PEN America’s Washington office. “Students will be the losers if this plan goes forward.” Read the full statement here.
- PEN America condemned the review into Columbia University’s federal grants and contracts by three government departments, to ensure civil rights law compliance and called it an extreme overreach. “The government is creating threats to universities based on vague definitions to promote political priorities in the name of civil rights,” said Kristen Shahverdian, program director for Campus Free Speech at PEN America. Read the full statement here.
- For this week’s Shelf Love, our interview series featuring romance authors in collaboration with Authors Against Book Bans, we talked to Kennedy Ryan, bestselling author of Reel, This Could Be Us, and Hoops trilogy. Read the full interview here.
- In the latest PEN Ten, Emily St. James talked to literary programs coordinator, Claire Mehrotra, about her debut novel, Woodworking, which traces the story of two trans women in South Dakota. Read the full interview here.
- For PEN Ten, we spoke to writer Samina Ali about her new book, Pieces You’ll Never Get Back. Over two decades in the making, the memoir recounts a traumatic labor that left Ali in a coma with little recognition, memory, and language. Read the full interview here.
- PEN America’s Viktorya Vilk, director, digital safety and free expression, and Tat Bellamy-Walker, program manager, digital safety training and resources (media), shared important tips on digital security on Journalism Press Club Institute’s blog and newsletter. Read more here.
- The PEN/Faulkner Award, considered the most prestigious annual peer-juried literary prize in America, announced this year’s long list. Find out who made the cut here. Read more on LitHub, Book Riot, and AP.
