PEN America Prison Writing Award Winners: 2020
Perhaps now, more than ever, the work of this contest is needed: to help melt calcified perceptions of who is incarcerated, to uplift the incredible literary voices stifled by… More
Prison Writing Committee
Our PEN America Prison Writing Committee is a group of dedicated volunteers whose primary task, among other engagements, is mining over 1,200 entries per year to judge the annual… More
Breakout: Voices From the Inside
Featuring award-winning prose and poetry from the 2015 PEN Prison Writing Contest, read by Khalil Cumberbatch, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Siri Hustvedt, Mitchell S. Jackson, Dawn Lundy Martin, Jeffrey Toobin,… More
PEN Applauds Experimental Funding for Inmate Education
Courses in education that build skill afford the only hope to change the course of direction for many caught in the downward spiral of these inhuman warehouses where people,… More
Justin Torres Reads “Letter to My Grandnephew” by Christopher Myers
In this excerpt from Breakout: Voices from the Inside—A Celebration of the PEN Prison Writing Program 2014, Justin Torres reads “Letter to My Grandnephew” by Christopher Myers. More
Eric Boyd Reads “Of Ash and Bone” by Robert Weaver
In this excerpt from Breakout: Voices from the Inside—A Celebration of the PEN Prison Writing Program 2014, Eric Boyd reads “Of Ash and Bone” by Robert Weaver. More
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Remembering writer Liu Xiaobo--imprisoned for subversion after he penned 7 sentences--on the 3rd anniversary of his death in custody. His words and inspiration will never be forgotten, even as China continues to jail dozens more for #FreeExpression. https://pen.org/advocacy-case/liu-xiaobo/
At least 10 free speech activists are at risk of dying behind bars in China, a Paris-based press freedom group said on Friday, as the authorities continued their crackdown on online speech across the country. https://bit.ly/3fBKB4o