About PEN America
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About PEN America
10 months ago
pen.org
Book bans are just the beginning! Project 2025 is poised to curtail free expression using the same scare tactics and chilling effects that the measures in states like Florida, Texas, and Iowa have used to produce record numbers of book bans. Should librarians be treated as criminals for protecting free expression? | PEN America
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Book bans are just the beginning! Project 2025 is poised to curtail free expression using the same scare tactics and chilling effects that the measures in states like Florida, Texas, and Iowa have used to produce record numbers of book bans. Should librarians be treated as criminals for protecting free expression? | PEN America
6.8K viewsDec 9, 2024
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Celebrate literary excellence at the live, virtual 2021 PEN America Literary Awards ceremony! Register for free today. | PEN America
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Celebrate literary excellence at the live, virtual 2021 PEN America Literary Awards ceremony! Register for free today. | PEN America
64.1K viewsMar 17, 2021
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Online abuse, threats, harassment, and other intimidation tactics are extremely effective in undermining free expression — causing significant physical and psychological harm, leading to self-censorship and silencing. Writers and their allies — including authors, journalists, scholars, and librarians — are targeted for their professions and their identities, particularly if they are women, people of color, LGBTQ , have a disability, or belong to religious or ethnic minorities. For more, check ou
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Online abuse, threats, harassment, and other intimidation tactics are extremely effective in undermining free expression — causing significant physical and psychological harm, leading to self-censorship and silencing. Writers and their allies — including authors, journalists, scholars, and librarians — are targeted for their professions and their identities, particularly if they are women, people of color, LGBTQ , have a disability, or belong to religious or ethnic minorities. For more, check ou
510 views6 months ago
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Watch P!nk and Amanda Gorman as they join PEN America to discuss the importance of standing up for the freedom to read! 🗣️ ❌ 📚 | PEN America
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Watch P!nk and Amanda Gorman as they join PEN America to discuss the importance of standing up for the freedom to read! 🗣️ ❌ 📚 | PEN America
513.4K viewsAug 13, 2024
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Write. Read. Relax. Repeat. That's what we're taking away from the writers' resolutions shared with us by authors Cleyvis Natera, Alejandro Heredia and Jinwoo Chong — three of the Literary Hosts who joined us for PEN America’s New Year New Books at Poets House on January 14th. Thanks to all of the 150 writers, readers, and members of the literary community who joined us for another great event to support books, ideas, and the freedom to read. Learn more about PEN America membership at: https://p
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Write. Read. Relax. Repeat. That's what we're taking away from the writers' resolutions shared with us by authors Cleyvis Natera, Alejandro Heredia and Jinwoo Chong — three of the Literary Hosts who joined us for PEN America’s New Year New Books at Poets House on January 14th. Thanks to all of the 150 writers, readers, and members of the literary community who joined us for another great event to support books, ideas, and the freedom to read. Learn more about PEN America membership at: https://p
274 views3 months ago
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Announcing the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards Winners
Announcing the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards Winners
1 month ago
pen.org
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"The first 100 days of the Trump administration amount to a five-alarm fire for free speech," says Summer Lopez, PEN America's Interim Co-CEO and Chief Program Officer, Free Expression. Read our new report and join us in calling on Congress to speak up for free expression at: https://pen.org/report/trump-administration-100-days/ | PEN America
346 viewsApr 30, 2025
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PEN America is thrilled to announce the 2026 Literary Grant Winners! Recognizing oral history, young adult literature, migration narratives, and translation, these works-in-progress illuminate important stories and are sure to carry a lasting literary impact. Among the winning projects were works translated from Wolof and Kven, a middle grade fantasy novel about a winged lion cub and a girl seeking freedom, and a collection of multilingual poems by an incarcerated immigrant writer. To celebrate
1.2K views5 months ago
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PEN America's World Voices Festival returns to NY and LA from April 30-May 3! In an era of censorship, this gathering of 85 writers from 35 countries is a potent reminder that books drive culture and identity, while empowering and transforming our lives. We invite you to join us at PEN World Voices as we celebrate great writing and the power of uncensored storytelling. Find out more about this year's sensational selection of free and paid events at: https://worldvoices.pen.org/ | PEN America
311 viewsApr 8, 2025
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PEN America 2024
1.7K viewsMay 22, 2024
YouTubePEN America
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PEN America kicked off its 20th World Voices Festival on the 100th day of the Trump administration with a lively – and timely – discussion between Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennifer Egan, and Burhan Sönmez centered on the role of novelists in times of crisis. We caught up with them before they took the stage for our opening night event, The PEN and the State, moderated by PEN America Interim Co-CEO Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, which highlighted attacks on free expression and the role of language and
398 viewsMay 1, 2025
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Spanning fiction, poetry, essay, translation, and more, the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards Longlists are juried by panels of esteemed, award-winning authors, editors, translators, and critics. See — and shop — the longlisted titles at: https://bookshop.org/lists/2026-pen-america-literary-awards-longlists #PENLitAwards | PEN America
482 views4 months ago
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From Germany to Czechia, European Literature Night brought together writers and translators from seven countries. There were panels, readings, and a poetic opera. Read more about the evening co-presented by PEN America: https://pen.org/european-literature-night-celebrating-the-power-of-words-across-borders/ | PEN America
325 viewsDec 9, 2024
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PEN America: Protecting the Power of Words
4K viewsMay 23, 2023
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"Books are powerful, and stories have a powerful role to play in our lives. They help us to feel less alone. They help us to feel seen and more than that, they help us to see others." Bestselling author John Green's "Looking for Alaska" is the most frequently banned book since PEN America began counting in 2021, but he left us with reason for hope. Read the full interview at: https://pen.org/john-green-interview/ | PEN America
2.7K views4 months ago
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The 61st annual PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony comes to Town Hall, NYC on May 8! This year’s ceremony will be hosted by two-time Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist and author Tamron Hall. See the finalists, learn more about this year's performances—and get your tickets now!—at: https://pen.org/event/2025-pen-america-literary-awards-ceremony/ | PEN America
32.3K viewsApr 21, 2025
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The 2020 PEN America Literary Awards Winners
Mar 2, 2020
pen.org
0:50
At the end of February, PEN America led an international and immigrant writers delegation to Minneapolis, presenting public conversations on the role of writers in response to the massive deployment of ICE immigration agents, and the protests and outrage over the raids and violence that followed. Here, Burhan Sönmez, President of PEN International and Dinaw Mengestu, President of PEN America discuss how this weekend of solidarity and reflection reinforced our organizations' shared belief in forg
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Stories help children learn who they are and how to relate to others. That’s why books about identity, friendship, and empathy matter, and why it’s so alarming when they’re banned. PEN America members are standing up for authors like Taye Diggs and the readers who need these stories most. Join a community committed to protecting diverse voices today — and for the future. Become a member of PEN America. | PEN America
18.4K views4 months ago
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“For the last 20 years, I was trying to write horror and fantasy, but it wasn’t until…I published Free Lunch, which is about poverty, domestic violence and home instability, which I dealt with all through middle school, and I got this reaction from librarians and teachers being like, 'there are so many kids who are going through this. They needed this kind of book,'" said author Rex Ogle at this year's PEN America Annual General Meeting. "It’s more important now than ever for kids to be able to
701 views4 months ago
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📢 In the 2022–23 school year, PEN America recorded 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public schools and libraries! Click to learn the facts and help protect the right to read! | PEN America
26.5K viewsApr 11, 2024
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Join us for the 60th annual PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony. Save the date for APRIL 29th at The Town Hall in NYC. This year, we will recognize the finest fiction, poetry, essays, nonfiction, and works in translation published in 2023. Find out more at https://pen.org/event/2024-pen-america-literary-awards-ceremony/ | PEN America
268 viewsMar 29, 2024
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“We have been astonished to see books ripped off the shelves and students forced into the middle of a fight they didn’t ask for or deserve. All of us, especially those of us who make our living in the literary world, are called upon to defend against book bans and legislation that suppresses new voices.” - Michael Connelly | PEN America
21.8K viewsDec 15, 2023
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Margaret Atwood's dark, dystopian novels feel like fiction but were carefully researched from reality; she knows the world from which she speaks. When censorship becomes a power play, democracy becomes the stakes. Join PEN America and push back. | PEN America
35.8K views5 months ago
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Today it’s words. Tomorrow? Entire subjects. Help us draw the line on censorship. Support PEN America. A growing list of words (more than 350) and materials has been scrubbed from government websites and documents in an attempt to remove all references not only to diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to climate change, vaccines, and a host of other topics. | PEN America
18.1K views4 months ago
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PEN America on Reels
644K viewsJan 17, 2024
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📢 In the 2022–23 school year, PEN America recorded 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public schools and libraries! Visit our site to learn more share your thoughts in the comments. | PEN America
242K views9 months ago
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🚨PEN America has compiled a list of more than 250 words and phrases reportedly no longer considered acceptable by the Trump administration, from “abortion,” to “women,” and including “disability,” “elderly,” “Native American” and, unsurprisingly, the “Gulf of Mexico.” “We’re now living in a country where the government has decided that a sweeping array of everyday terms will now be erased and forbidden in government agencies, websites, or even scientific research proposals. These prohibitions o
3.5K views10 months ago
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Join us for the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony at The Town Hall in NYC on March 2! 11 book awards. $350,000 in prizes. PLUS: Tina Fey will receive the 2023 PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award. Get your #PENLitAwards tickets today: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/03005E32B6FD26CF | PEN America
370 viewsFeb 17, 2023
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