The PEN Ten with Monique Truong
Writers or rather our works begin the conversations about the difficult, unanswerable subjects of life, and often our works keep the conversations going when everyone else would rather forget.… More
The PEN Ten with emily m. danforth
I fear that it sounds too nicey-nice, too passive, which isn’t my intention—writers can and should agitate and expose and upset. But I still think there’s something there in… More
PEN Ten with Chris Abani
Writers and storytellers as a whole are curators of our common humanity. This is difficult because we curate not just the good, but also the bad, the totality that… More
The PEN Ten with Alexander Chee
At some point recently I realized I mostly read about assassins. Assassins and sex work—in particular, I'm fascinated by the new porn narratives, the way porn has moved on… More
The PEN Ten with Karen Emmerich
The writer might have no responsibilities whatsoever, but the translator has only responsibilities—or at least that’s the popular perception. That’s why we’re always failing—according, again, to the popular perception.… More
The PEN Ten with Roxane Gay
Do writers have a collective purpose? I'm not sure, but what we do is write the world as we see it. We witness and record and remember and when… More
The PEN Ten with Shya Scanlon
Unfortunately, too little progress has been made, globally, since Solzhenitsyn smuggled his Nobel acceptance speech out of the Soviet Union as negatives in a tape deck in 1970. Even… More
The PEN Ten with Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
After I eat breakfast I clear off the table and wheel in my ergonomic chair which I have to keep in the bedroom for space reasons. The light is… More
The PEN Ten with Nancy K. Miller
I think constantly about aging and dying. Given my age and illness, this is in no way surprising, but the specter of a horrible death hovers over my waking… More
The PEN Ten with Julia Fierro
John F. Kennedy said, "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." I’d revise that message: "Forgive your enemy, but never forget their story." More
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