The PEN Ten with Rachel Eliza Griffiths
"The responsibility of the writer is a hydra-headed practice of witnessing and action. That means accountability—to a greater world and to, especially, my own spiritual ecosystem." More
The PEN Ten with Moustafa Bayoumi
"A writer’s “revolutionary duty,” as Gabriel García Márquez once put it, is 'to write well.' The responsibility of a human being, on the other hand, is to practice compassion… More
The PEN Ten with Robin Coste Lewis
"I have a responsibility to history to get out of the way and try as best I can to document what I see, even if it is internal, because… More
Interview with Christopher Merrill and Robert Shapard, Editors of Flash Fiction International
Robert Shapard and Christopher Merrill, co-editors of the anthology Flash Fiction International, in conversation about the form and translating it. More
Three Questions with Brian Blanchfield
I uncover here a responsibility I feel—to attempt disinhibition, to include affective knowledge, to be inside the body, to report from a place of personal discomfort or unease. Ursula… More
Three Questions with Dawn Lundy Martin
Are there languages of hierarchy that can attend to the difference between the lack of privilege experienced by the black body in America and the overt censorship in some… More
Three Questions with TC Tolbert
The word obliterated comes from the Latin, meaning “to strike out, or erase, what has been written.” I believe I (my-self) am both obliterator and obliterated. I was made… More
The PEN Ten with Sonia Guiñansaca
"Erasure happens when it comes to the history/lives/contribution/resistance/survival of people of color in America, and so with my pen I make sure that they exist and are remembered in… More
The PEN Ten with Dunya Mikhail
"When I came to America, I found that censorship had no home on the ground, but it was somehow in the air, implicit. Speech here is usually restricted to… More
The PEN Ten with Stephanie Kuehn
"...there are plenty of adults who feel young adult literature requires hope. I feel differently, which goes back to truth-telling. I believe teens deserve uncomfortable truths." More
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