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Interviews & Features

PEN America produces a breadth of interviews and features throughout the year. 

The PEN Ten Interviews • Pen Pals Prison Writing

The PEN Ten with Harvey J. Kaye

My lifelong hero—ever since I was a boy—is Thomas Paine, the American Revolutionary and radical-democratic pamphleteer. I would love to be identified with his words, words such as “The… More

The PEN Ten with Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Fidel Castro as the measure of all things. Why is it that no Latin American writer, after almost a century of tradition with the so-called “novels of the dictator,”… More

Thai Freedom: We Can’t Breathe

He was speaking in code, of course, as many Thais do when discussing Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code that states: “Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King,… More

The PEN Ten with Amanda Vaill

I'm still surprised to answer "I'm a writer" when people ask me what I do. I wrote as a child—pages of what we would probably call fan-fiction today, extensions… More

The PEN Ten with Michael F. Moore

As an interpreter I’m a bit of a stage mother, pushing the writer or director for whom I’m interpreting to jump into the conversation (Forza! Dai! Sfondi! I whisper).… More

The PEN Ten with Kyle Minor

I wish American writers in general were less anti-intellectual, more interested in the interior life and exterior systems of power. I don't come from a subculture that had much… More