Kimberly Nguyen | Emerging Voices Fellow
I was really interested in the idea that pain and trauma can actually be embedded in the language itself. More
Nathan Go | Emerging Voices Fellow
I feel like we are back to square one. We are back to talking about voices that need to be heard because of all the backlash around diversity. More
Paul Yoon | The PEN Ten Interview
My hope is that each story communicates with the one beside it, in setting, in movement, in what it focuses on. More
Mona Awad | The PEN Ten Interview
Really the novel explores how we often focus on the surface in order to avoid pain, or any kind of difficult, deep internal work. More
The Resistance: How George M. Johnson’s Family Stopped a Book Ban
George M. Johnson’s memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue had been banned in more than two dozen school districts when the battle over the book came close to home. More
Ali Velshi on Reading as an Act of Resistance
Ali Velshi speaks to PEN America about how his new podcast, Velshi Banned Book Club, is an "act of resistance" against the epidemic of book banning. More
Thrity Umrigar | The PEN Ten Interview
Because what I’m most interested in is examining the systems and forces that create divides between people, those power dynamics that separate us. More
C Pam Zhang | The PEN Ten Interview
Like language, food is essential and theoretically accessible to almost anyone. The real question is which culinary voices are permitted, celebrated, amplified, valued. More
Dailihana Alfonseca | 2023 PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize Winner
Believe in yourself enough to bet on your journey as a writer and try not to let the pressures of wanting to publish alter the story you are attempting… More
Ren Arcamone | 2023 PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize Winner
In writing “Allen”, I wondered what might happen if the invisible housemate took up even more space inside the relationship. More