The PEN Ten with Nathan Deuel
When you've lived and worked in places where writing can get you killed, where the act of telling the truth can take down powers, it's hard to have anything… More
The PEN Ten with Uwem Akpan
If secondary school girls are being abducted for learning how to read and write, the whole enterprise of reading and writing is destroyed and a whole generation of girls… More
Three Questions with Cathy Park Hong
In literature, dystopic narrative has been used hubristically as a way to face one’s own mortality. An aging author, say someone like John Updike, conjures an apocalyptic narrative because… More
Three Questions with Heather Christle
I do not believe in trying to keep the work original. If that happens—if such an occurrence is possible—I believe it is necessarily a byproduct of a desire to… More
The PEN Ten with Je Banach
Writing may be courageous, but reading and speaking about what we read are also courageous acts. The discourse we create when we talk about books is daring just as… More
The PEN Ten with Jimmy Santiago Baca
What is the responsibility of the writer? To toss out like old rotten salad the yearning for fame and money and get busy fighting for human rights and protesting… More
The PEN Ten with Monique Truong
Writers or rather our works begin the conversations about the difficult, unanswerable subjects of life, and often our works keep the conversations going when everyone else would rather forget.… More
The PEN Ten with Julia Fierro
John F. Kennedy said, "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." I’d revise that message: "Forgive your enemy, but never forget their story." More
The PEN Ten with Domenica Ruta
I don’t care about fashion. Great minds paired with enormous hearts will always transcend fashion, no problem. The public intellectuals who are to remain vital will have to be… More
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