Banned Books Month is Coming!
September is all about banned books here at PEN American. We reached out to writers, editors, literary illuminati, and PEN staff to write about the banned books that matter… More
On Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried has been challenged because of profanity three times. At high schools in Pennsylvania (retained), Mississippi (banned), and Illinois (retained); in 2001, 2003, and 2007, respectively;… More
On William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
While ideological book banning is infuriating, banning out of ignorance and vague religiosity are, to me, even more galling. William Faulkner’s classic, As I Lay Dying, has been banned… More
On Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
Throughout the novel, Vonnegut punctuates each horror with the words, “And so it goes.” Nothing protects the Billy Pilgrims of the world from brutality. Innocence is no protection. More
Robie Harris On the Banning of Her Books
How can we hold back writing about powerful feelings, or not include certain information children crave and have the right to know, simply because we are afraid? More
On Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
Say that Lolita is hilarious and excruciating and sad—no novel ever had a sadder last line—but not boring, surely. We throb with the miserable Humbert as he creeps across… More
On James Joyce’s Ulysses
Until I graduated from college—and had to find a job, get my heart broken, bear the burden of being a twenty-something during recession, watch friends go to rehab, watch… More
On J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
What Salinger gave to us were memorable meeting points between innocence and the world’s soiling stains. There was so much authenticity in his stance and sympathy that his artificialities… More
My Banned Books
Before the decade ended, I was asked to return a payment of $50.00 to an educational publisher. My poem about dinosaurs had to be removed from a language arts… More
Celebrate Banned Books Week: September 24-October 1
It’s time again for Banned Books Week, that annual celebration of one’s freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September,… More
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PEN America On 
No underestimating this threat. @SuzanneNossel of @PENAmerica tells a US House subcommittee: "This escalating battle for control over free expression in education should worry us all.'
https://pen.org/pen-america-this-escalating-battle-for-control-over-free-expression-in-education-should-worry-us-all/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pug
Introducing Higher Ed Autonomy Restrictions: a new tab on PEN America’s Index of Educational Gag Orders, our official tracker of all gag order bills introduced since 2021. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tj5WQVBmB6SQg-zP_M8uZsQQGH09TxmBY73v23zpyr0/edit#gid=576660683
I was just live on CNN talking about the ban on Ruby Bridges at North Shore Elementary in dictator DeSantis’s Florida. She was over my shoulder the whole time.