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 decried executive orders that require federal agencies to remove reference to “gender,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “environmental justice” from all federal documents, and expressed concerns over reporting that suggests the National Science Foundation is screening research projects to comply with executive orders the White House. Read the full statement here. There is no act of censorship more explicit than literally banning words. Send a letter to Congress.
- PEN America joined more than 50 organizations representing authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, distributors, and national and state advocacy nonprofits signed a joint letter released Wednesday expressing concern that the Trump Administration’s Jan. 20 executive order, entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Read our press release here.
- PEN America responded to the recent action against USAID and called for urgent congressional action. In a statement PEN America’s interim co-CEO, Summer Lopez, said, “The malicious, specious attacks on USAID, alongside the freeze on virtually all foreign assistance, are a catastrophic abdication of the U.S.’s historic role in the international community and a callous abandonment of those who fight against oppression the world over and who have relied on the support of USAID to do their work.” Read our full statement here.
- Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes, John Green’s Looking for Alaska, and Stephen Chobosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower were among the top banned books of 2025. Read about it in The Guardian and read our list here.
- PEN America’s Tasslyn Magnusson will be recognized by the Children’s Book Council and its charitable arm, Every Child a Reader, which will honor her with its first-ever Free Speech Award this spring. Working on PEN America’s Freedom to Read team, Magnusson has helped track over 16000 book bans since 2021. “We create a world that is better when young people can explore literature that speaks to them authentically and meets them where they are at—not where adults imagine they should be,” she said. Read more about the work Magnusson does here.
- PEN America joined the International Press Institute (IPI) and other organizations in expressing concern over the rising threats to press freedom in Türkiye. Read the statement detailing recent violations here.
- In a new PEN Ten interview, Amy Reid, Senior Manager of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program, talked to Olufunke Grace Bankole, whose new book, Edge of Water, weaves a provocative story of mothers, daughters, and adopted families on both sides of the Atlantic. Bankole discusses her writing process, hopefulness, and the American dream. Read the full interview here.
- For our Facts Forward interview series, Wall Street Journal’s tech reporter, Deepa Seetharaman, sat down with Mina Haq, journalism and disinformation program consultant. Seetharaman, whose coverage has recently centered around AI, deciphers AI-induced disinformation and paranoia, explaining how, for much of her work, she strives to find the human behind the machine. Read the full interview here.
