The PEN Pod: On the Power of Poetry with Natasha Trethewey
“Poetry can save us. It can, in many ways, unite us because of the sheer intimacy of a single voice that might reach someone.” More
The PEN Pod: Tough Questions with Suzanne Nossel
“There are people who have fought against authoritarian overreach around the world—how do they feel about it now that it’s happening in American cities?” More
The PEN Pod: A Reckoning in Hollywood with Kim Masters
“True power—defined as the ability to get something made because you feel like it, because you think it’s a good idea—is in very few hands.” More
The PEN Pod: Confronting a History of Hate with Seyward Darby
“The alt-right was frequently described as angry white men. . . but it struck me as wrongheaded to assume that women would not be in the movement.” More
The PEN Pod: Tough Questions with Suzanne Nossel
“People are coming to grips with the legacy of racism in profound ways. And it’s forcing this examination of what kinds of speech are appropriate.” More
The PEN Pod: On Systemic Racism in Hollywood with the Writers Guild of America West
Leaders of the Committee of Black Writers at WGA West talked to The PEN Pod about racial justice and equity in Hollywood. 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: Tough Questions with Suzanne Nossel
“To be a more equitable, inclusive, and just society, as well as a society that sustains robust protections for free speech, [we must]. . . reflect all these values.” More
The PEN Pod: Challenging Our Paradigms with Julia Alvarez
“What [reading] asks of us is to become the other, to become someone else. And those are the same muscles that we use when we’re activists for social justice.“ More
The PEN Pod: On the Small Things We Cannot See That Change Our Lives with Ed Yong
“As journalists, it is our responsibility to resist those easy dichotomies and to find all the missing nuance in the middle that is important, but is also being neglected.“ More