Silent Treatment
Rahsaan "New York" Thomas was awarded 2nd Place in Fiction in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction,… More
Life. In Pieces
Frank Kensaku Saragosa was awarded 1st Place in Fiction in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and… More
A Homeless History Lesson
Gary Farlow was awarded an Honorable Mention in Drama in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and… More
Horrible Brothers
Walter Sam was awarded an Honorable Mention in Drama in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and… More
Officer Sam Doesn’t Work Here, Anymore
Burl N. Corbett was awarded an Honorable Mention in Drama in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction,… More
PEN America Prison Writing Award Winners: 2021
Perhaps now, more than ever, the work of this contest is needed: to help melt calcified perceptions of who is incarcerated, to uplift the incredible literary voices stifled by… More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with the 2021 PEN Prison Writing Award Winners
“Am I a writer imprisoned, or has imprisonment made me a writer? Parallel universes aside, imprisonment. . . does contain all the essential ingredients of a writer’s life.” More
PEN America Prison Writing Award Winners: 2020
Perhaps now, more than ever, the work of this contest is needed: to help melt calcified perceptions of who is incarcerated, to uplift the incredible literary voices stifled by… More
PEN America Prison Writing Award Winners: 2019
Every year, hundreds of inmates from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free… More
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My latest op-ed on school librarians. @becalzada @technolibrary @MaryWoodard @KPekoll @OIF #Freadom @ashleyhopeperez @halseanderson https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/school-library-book-banning-bill-gop-abbott-lege-17857122.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG91c3RvbmNocm9uaWNsZS5jb20vb3Bpbmlvbi9vdXRsb29rL2FydGljbGUvc2Nob29sLWxpYnJhcnktYm9vay1iYW5uaW5nLWJpbGwtZ29wLWFiYm90dC1sZWdlLTE3ODU3MTIyLnBocA==&time=MTY3OTcwNDU3Nzg4MQ==&rid=NDBiMmRkY2UtYTdjZC00NWU2LWE0NmQtMDZmMTlkNWE2OGIw&sharecount=MQ==
#ChildrensBooks
“#FirstAmendment rights do not stop at the schoolhouse door,” PEN America’s Nadine Farid Johnson reminds
@JudiciaryGOP, highlighting the need to prepare students for "life in a participatory democracy, one that requires us to debate, to understand & to discuss." #StudentsRights