A person with long dark dreadlocks and a beard, wearing a black shirt, smiles softly while facing the camera against a plain light gray background, evoking themes of justice and resilience beyond prison walls.

Malcolm Tariq

Program Director, Prison and Justice Writing

Malcolm Tariq is the program director for the Prison and Justice Writing Program at PEN America. Previously, he served as the programs manager for Cave Canem, where he curated public events, directed three book prizes and the Cave Canem Fellowship, and in partnership with the EcoTheo Collective developed the Starshine and Clay Fellowship for emerging Black poets. He has also worked in communications and development for the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services and The Friends School of Atlanta, and was a Public Humanities Fellow at the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Tariq is the author of Heed the Hollow (Graywolf Press, 2019), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and the Georgia Author of the Year Award, and Extended Play (Gertrude Press, 2017). He was a 2020-2021 resident playwright with Liberation Theatre Company, and his work has been supported by Horizon Theatre Company, Working Title Playwrights, and Brave New Worlds Repertory Theatre. As a writer and scholar, he has received fellowships from The Watering Hole, the Social Science Research Council, and Imagining America. A graduate of Emory University, Tariq holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan. He is in the 2021-2022 Core Certificate Program cohort with the Institute for Nonprofit Practice.


Articles by Malcolm Tariq

A black-and-white portrait of a woman with long hair and a flower ring, next to the book cover of The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths, featuring a seated woman with her head covered in flowers.
Writing as Craft
Thursday April 16

‘I Tend to What Didn’t Die in Me’: Rachel Eliza Griffiths on Writing After Unbearable Loss

In this PEN Ten interview, Rachel Eliza Griffiths discusses The Flower Bearers and the vulnerability required to be any kind of artist.

A person with glasses and a serious expression is on the left, wearing a white shirt and gray jacket, against a red circular background. To the right is an image of a bingo card with the blue title Bingo and red text spelling a name.
Writing as Craft
Thursday February 13

“A Man Made of Words” Alan Michael Parker on His Adventures in Flash Fiction

Moving from the Bingo cards to flash fiction, and to my cartoons, and to long-form prose projects, I think I’m more aware now of the power of the non-plot points as narrative data.

A person in an orange shirt stands against a light gray background, next to a book cover titled Witness by Lyle C. May, featuring a forest scene with a red-tinted sky.
Writing as Craft
Thursday December 19

Lyle C. May | The PEN Ten

All language has power, and the less you understand, the more it will constrain your life and liberty.