Turning Sentences Around
In this Works of Justice exclusive, Robert Lee Williams reflects on how PEN America's "The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer's Life in Prison" (Haymarket Books, 2022) helped… More
An Interview with Chicago Books to Women in Prison
PEN America’s Moira Marquis interviews Chicago Books to Women in Prison to learn more about why they choose to work exclusively with women’s prisons. More
Scheduled Vote to Close Library Sends an Alarming Message that Government Can Choose What People Read
Kasey Meehan, program director, Freedom to Read project at PEN America, issued the following statement: “The proposal to close the Llano library system is not only an end-run to avoid… More
Where It Hurts: How Book Bans Restrict Access to Healthcare
Kwaneta Harris explains how book bans restrict people who are incarcerated from learning about their reproductive health and other areas of healthcare. More
What’s Mildred Taylor Got to Do With It?: Race, Prison Book Bans, and the Power in Storytelling
In this essay on prison book bans, Moira Marquis uses "The 1619 Project" to explain how limiting access to Black history and culture is deleterious to people who are… More
PEN America Urges Illinois Prison Officials to Reverse ‘Troubling’ Decision to Remove 200+ Books in a Prison Library
"The fact that these removed books deal primarily with contemporary racial issues is, unfortunately, not a surprise to us,” said James Tager, Deputy Director of Free Expression Research and… More
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