New Orleans Stories, Before and After Hurricane Katrina: What Went Missing and What Got Found
A year after the hurricane, the PEN American Center’s Children’s Committee organized a partnership with the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, the only school to reopen in the… More
Katrina: 10 Years Later
In this second of two blog posts commemorating the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Fatima Shaik reflects on the work of PEN's Children's and Young Adult Book Committee in… More
Stories That Traveled (video)
Three authors of books for children and young adults reveal the ways the African continent inspires their work and influences their identities as writers. More
Climbing Monkey Hill
Everyone made too big a deal of things she would do naturally, Levia thought, like to go to high school. She had a better plan. More
Bird Whistle
I wanted to go. But Merrill insisted we had already put down roots. She said oaks didn’t transplant well, but they did grow stronger with age. What could I… More
Bird’s Nests and Books: a Children’s Book Author Fights for the Open Net
Children's book author Fatima Shaik spoke at a rally to support the Open Net today with a coalition of advocacy groups. More
A Tribute to Walter Dean Myers (August 12, 1937-July 1, 2014)
His element was as a spokesman for the male point of view in black literature for children. More
Why Do You Write? Adult and Teen Writers Speak Out
Unlike posh private schools, the inner-city public and charter high schools have no money to bring authors; yet they have enthusiastic readers and writers who deserve support. More
Fatima Shaik: Translation, Semantics, and Race
In the 1950s, my father discovered a mountain of old journals on the back of a dump truck. He stored the journals in a closet because they were “very… More
Alert Us
Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?
PEN America On 
Every yr, people cycle through the doors of 3,000+ jails in the U.S.—too often invisible to the public.❗
That’s why @verainstitute & @PENAmerica created “The Human Toll of Jail,” featuring the stories of people living behind bars… https://www.vera.org/the-human-toll-of-jail-2023
Social media co’s are NOT enforcing their policies to limit disinfo, violence, other violative content. It’s not abt free speech, it’s abt companies doing what they’ve promised consumers. I @freepress wrote a report on tech failures in policy & practice:https://www.freepress.net/policy-library/empty-promises-inside-big-techs-weak-effort-fight-hate-and-lies-2022
"There was this history professor called Arthur Hibbert... he said, 'You should never write history until you can hear the people speak'... and I thought what a great piece of advice for a novelist," @SalmanRushdie tells David Remnick.
Listen free: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/episodes/salman-rushdie-surviving-fatwa