Seven Poems by Valerie Hsiung
(I am withholding something / frightening, holy, foolhardy, strange, / loving, excruciating, vital, unknown, / rejuvenating, transient, natural, old) // like a free will / like nowhere to go More
Six Poems by Lily Mazzarella
All summer, the road was littered / with songbirds, their heads smashed in / I was poisoned by absinthe, and set a field / on fire, and spent the… More
The PEN Ten with Domenica Ruta
I don’t care about fashion. Great minds paired with enormous hearts will always transcend fashion, no problem. The public intellectuals who are to remain vital will have to be… More
The Country of Planks
No one is the homeland, was the / apparent scream of the blind planks / in the dead homeland of the sea // This is how the chilean prisons… More
Three Poems by Kiki Petrosino
You died in the pith of August. You left us. / In rageful choke, in dust: you left us. // On your coffin lid: Going Home. A bluebird. /… More
Announcing the 2013 PEN Literary Award Winners
PEN America announced today the winners and runners-up of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. More
2013 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a Playwright in Midcareer
WinnersKirsten GreenidgeThe PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards recognize a master American dramatist and an American playwright in mid-career, both of whose literary achievements are vividly apparent in… More
Death by Dominoes
The maximum-security prison was a depraved place, a hermetic kingdom of the damned, haunted by its own terrible spirit. It was a hulking brute of a building, stout as… More
The PEN Ten with Alissa Nutting
"I think writing should be a sacrifice, and feel like one—how else could the act of constructing narratives, stories, lies, deceptions, ever be kept honest, if not through demanding… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
