Interviews & Features
PEN America produces a breadth of interviews and features throughout the year.
From Movie Star to Book Translator, Molly Ringwald Makes a Splash (In Pink) at the PEN America Literary Awards
(NEW YORK)— Books aside, some of the chatter among the literary and publishing crowd at PEN America’s Literary Awards ceremony last Thursday night zeroed in on a surprise guest… More
‘Literature lasts’: Erika Dickerson-Despenza basks in career achievement award
For Erika Dickerson-Despenza, receiving the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award meant something special – an honor for words on the page. More
Genre-Defying Author Percival Everett Takes Top PEN America Literary Award
Percival Everett’s body of work has been called many things — experimental, idiosyncratic, “gleefully unhinged” — and perhaps most frequently, prolific. “It’s a tasteless thing to do, but I… More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with De’Shawn Charles Winslow
I wanted to show what lengths people would go to just to conceal truths: a child’s queerness, an addiction, hypocrisy. More
Derrick Barnes Calls Canceling School Visits Cowardly
Award-winning author Derrick Barnes’ school visits to Alabama were canceled after the superintendent called him a “controversial guy.” More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with Lamya H
Finding queer Muslim community taught me it was possible to live. More
Julia Cameron Is Still Showing the Way
It has been more than 30 years since Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way, and she's adding some new tools to her morning pages and artist dates. More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with Isabel Waidner
Sterling Karat Gold deliberately blurs conventional boundaries between what counts as real and as imagined. More
Oklahoma teacher is still fighting book bans, now from Brooklyn
Summer Boismier lost her job after she gave students a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned project. Now she’s helping teens fight book bans. More
The PEN Ten: An Interview with Franny Choi
Only good long-form writing can hold you in contact with someone else’s interiority, their motivations, their makeup, for hours or days or weeks. More