Richard Price and Fran Lebowitz on Gentrification in NYC
Richard Price and Fran Lebowitz share perspectives on the changing dynamics of living in NYC in this video clip from the 2016 PEN World Voices Festival. More
Sam Shepard Reads from Motel Chronicles
Today we share a clip from the 2007 PEN World Voices Festival in which the late, great Sam Shepard reads an excerpt from his short story collection Motel Chronicles. More
Roxane Gay on Diversity in Publishing
In anticipation of the 2018 PEN World Voices Festival, today we share a clip from the 2016 festival in which Hunger author Roxane Gay discusses issues of diversity in… More
PEN World Voices Festival 2018, with Theme “Resist and Reimagine,” Will Convene Writers, Artists, and Thinkers from the United States and Abroad to Plot Paths Ahead for Societies in Turmoil, April 16–22
PEN America presents the 2018 PEN World Voices Festival: Resist and Reimagine, this year’s incarnation of the renowned international literary festival, which will bring together the world’s foremost authors… More
Chip Rolley Assumes PEN World Voices Festival Leadership Amid Deepening Challenges to Free Expression
Chip Rolley, former Artistic Director of the Sydney Writers' Festival, has joined PEN America as the new Director of the PEN World Voices Festival and Senior Director of Literary… More
Edmund White on Gay Fiction
Once AIDS came along in 1981, gay writers were encouraged to back off from writing sex scenes. We weren’t supposed to awaken any sense of backlash against gays who… More
Zeyar Lynn Reads Two Poems
I have not written my history ... They have written my history, then they have airbrushed me from history. More
The PEN Ten with Marge Piercy
Even very dangerous books are worth reading, if only to know my enemy. I don’t think anybody has the right to censor another person’s ideas. More
PEN World Voices Festival: Gender and Power
New York, NY (February 16, 2017) –The thirteenth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature will focus its lens on today’s fractious relationship between gender and power. Taking… More
With a Rent Battle Behind It, La Sirena Celebrates Its 16th Cinco de Mayo
Every morning, Dina Leor opens her Mexican folk-art store the same way: by lighting sage, burning incense and scattering rose petals. “I feel it affects the store if I… More