Protecting the Freedom to Learn: A Banned Books Week Reading List
In this reading list, we’ve chosen to spotlight 10 of the 19 books slated for removal or suspension in the Leander Independent School District in Texas. More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with Choi Eunyoung, Translated by Sung Ryu
“Although a book isn’t a person, I hoped that mine would be a book that ‘listens’ to the stories of people going through similar battles as me.” More
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Reading List
As we mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we bring you a list of books that expand upon and amplify Asian Pacific American stories, histories, and authors. More
The PEN Pod: Reckoning with Aftershocks with Nadia Owusu
“It was really important to me to write about. . . my struggles with depression and anxiety because there is a harmful, dominant narrative that holds that mental illness… More
Supernova (Excerpted Pieces)
“The one person who is always there for me is not there. I feel that I face the world alone. I stand on the outside: I'm not like the… More
The PEN Pod: On Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary with Fredrik Backman
“I was going to try to write something about the things that everyday people go around carrying—that feeling that everybody else has their life figured out, except for me.” More
The PEN Pod: On Knowing We’re Not Alone with BIll Konigsberg
“The misfits have stories to tell. People who feel that way have more of a need to read in some ways, so I think it’s a perfect marriage.” More
The PEN Pod: On Race, Place, and Belonging with Sejal Shah
“I’m certainly thinking about kinship. . . What do we owe our neighbors and fellow humans. . . for whom to be alive is a risk?” More
The PEN Pod: On The Importance of Centering Marginalized Narratives with Jaquira Díaz
“I would hope that they would find in my story that my story was not unique, that so many of us go through this suffering in silence.” More