PEN America Speaks: How We Defended and Celebrated Free Expression This Week
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. More
Frequently Banned Books Featuring Transgender Stories
In national efforts to ban books and restrict content on LGBTQ+ characters and themes, stories on transgender individuals and characters are commonly challenged and banned, making up about 9%… More
How to Stop Book Bans
The freedom to read is under assault. Join PEN America to #FreeTheBooks by taking action and making your voice heard. More
These books are banned in Martin County, Florida
Last week, Martin County, Florida, released a list of dozens of books it had removed from school libraries, including 20 books by Jodi Picoult, nine books from James Patterson's… More
Florida Book Bans Are No Hoax: Here Are The Facts
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis set out to "expose the book ban hoax" about Florida classrooms. His claims are false. More
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel Responds to Remarks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that Book Bans Are a ‘Hoax’
If we take Gov. Ron DeSantis at his word that he is simply aiming to protect students from porn and sexualized texts, then the approaches and methods being legislated… More
Banned Books Week 2023
Banned Books Week 2023: Discover events around banned books week, the most banned books and more for banned books week October 1 - 7, 2023. More
“Alarming” Proposed Florida Law Heightens Oversight of Classroom Libraries, Expands Mechanism to Challenge a Book
“This is an alarming piece of legislation that would make it possible for a single parent in a district to enact a ban on any book simply by challenging… More
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PEN America On 
Another bit of sound legal judgement this week, from TX, where a judge found that conservative library board members had likely exercised unconstitutional content-based restrictions when banning books from the Llano public library. The books ordered back.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/31/texas-llano-library-books/
Talking to @AliVelshi, historian @TimothyDSnyder likens book bans in #Florida to Communism: “All this stuff is supposed to be anti-communist but as a historian of communism, that reminds me of some of the basic things that were wrong about communism.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/yale-professor-ron-desantis-book-bans_n_642696c7e4b02a8d518df5a9
Douglass Mackey, also known as “Ricky Vaughn,” was convicted today of the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights. Mackey sent fraudulent messages encouraging supporters of Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media which was legally invalid. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/social-media-influencer-douglass-mackey-convicted-election-interference-2016