Zhigwaajige’
“My mother then explained that the government had run a mass campaign and sterilized Indian people, and that one of the ways to do this was to label anyone… More
Why I Write
“I write because I have always written, because I want to write, because I don't want to write, because I don't know how to not write. Because, in the… More
Injuries Incompatible with Life
“This is my number, bro. Go to a meeting, get clean, and call me up sometime soon. I need a third baseman for our softball team, and you look… More
Tarkovsky by Countlight
“While in such a state, I had often pictured myself as some performance artist at the Guggenheim or somewhere: bleak, three-walled void of cell, its lotused, blanket-swaddled habitant.” More
Raw, Real, Uncensored
“The greatest consolation is that at the instant of death, all that was life ceases to matter; however good or bad, all the events of that life suddenly become… More
Little Gardens
“The older I get the more constricting I find the hetero mask to be. Committing this to paper is, then, something of a coming-out party.” More
The Path to Remembering
“I realized I wanted to write for women like me, women who want to read stories about dark, black ingenues; women who want to remember how ancient and divine… More
The Poetics of Sovereignty: Embracing Self-Determination on the Page
“My work is informed by my experience as a modern Tongva person who grew up in Tovaangar. In my poems, I start with where I’m from because it colors… More
Leave Expectations at the Door
“The book is still in progress. Some days it’s still so hard to put words on the page, but I’m not mad about any of this. I have grown… More
Tiger Heads All the Way Down
“I may not know how to finish but I do know how to start. If I start again and again, maybe my story will be tiger heads all the… More
Alert Us
Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?
PEN America On 
Disinformation is a growing voter suppression tactic aimed at Black communities. How can we fight it? Yosef Getachew from @CommonCause, Candice Fortman from @media_outlier & Heather Harding from @campaignfuture will discuss @PressClubDC 9/28. RSVP: http://bit.ly/3r7sScs #ALC51
University of Idaho’s legal counsel told faculty members that if they provide birth control (including condoms) to students or even mention abortion in certain contexts, or they could be fired for violating the state’s new anti-abortion law. https://jezebel.com/university-of-idaho-told-faculty-they-could-be-fired-fo-1849582850
More books banned.
More districts.
More states.
More students losing access to literature.
“More” is the operative word for our #BannedInTheUSA report on school book bans, which offers a comprehensive look at bans throughout the 2021–22 school year: https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/