The PEN Ten Interview Series
The PEN Ten is on the pulse of literary culture to help you discover your next great read. In this interview series, we ask authors 10 questions about their latest work and art.
The PEN Ten: Banned Books Edition with Meg Medina
It’s our job to name the human experience so that we don’t forget the ugly and the truly beautiful. It’s our job to write the stories that invite a… More
The PEN Ten: Banned Books Edition with Coe Booth
I think our responsibility is to tell the truth. We’re writing for discriminating readers who don’t want to read stories that water down their experiences or belittle the intensity… More
The PEN Ten: Banned Books Edition with Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Discretion is acceptable. Sensitivity is important. But censorship has no place in our public life. More
The PEN Ten with Sorayya Khan
I’ve always believed that writing is a political act, a way to explore injustice, a place to contemplate complicity, forgiveness, and the possibility of a better world. More
The PEN Ten with William Brewer
For me, at the atomic level, the obsession around which all my other obsessions orbit is seeing and making others see… More
The PEN Ten with Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa
The problem is the crown, doesn’t matter who's wearing it. Without the crown…"cultural theft and appropriation" is just humans engaging with the world around them—studying, learning, and collaborating. More
The PEN Ten with Matthew Zapruder
It’s better to bring such things we might be inclined to censor out into the light and let their ugliness be revealed and argued against. The alternative seems fraught… More
The PEN Ten with Malka Older
Writers mirror their societies, reflecting back and interpreting what they see with enough distance and distortion for recognition and insights and evolution to occur. More
The PEN Ten with Dani Shapiro
Writers—by the very nature of what we do—are forced to slow down, and perhaps in so doing, we form a counterweight to the culture of instantaneous reaction. More
The PEN Ten with Samiya Bashir
“The writer,” such as they are, can lose their mind or more by not writing. Your work, if it’s in you, can be both tonic and toxic. More
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