PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922,
PEN America's advocacy includes work on educational censorship,
PEN America hosts public programming and events on literature and human rights, including the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature and the annual PEN America Literary Awards, sometimes referred to as the "Oscars of Books."
The organization's name was conceived as an acronym for "Poets, Essayists, Novelists" (later broadened to "Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists"). As its membership expanded to include a more diverse range of people involved in literature and freedom of expression, the United States branch of the organization decided it would no longer treat PEN as an acronym.
History
PEN America was formed on April 19, 1922, in New York City, and included among its initial members writers such as
Willa Cather, Eugene O'Neill,
Robert Frost,
Ellen Glasgow, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and
Robert Benchley.
Booth Tarkington served as the organization's first president.
PEN America's founding came after the launch of PEN International in 1921 in London
PEN America presidents have included current president Jennifer Finney Boylan, Ayad Akhtar, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Louis Begley, Ron Chernow, Joel Conarroe, Jennifer Egan, Frances FitzGerald, Peter Godwin, Francine Prose, Salman Rushdie, Michael Scammell, and Andrew Solomon.
In 2018, the organization filed suit against President Trump for allegedly using the powers of his office to retaliate against unfavorable reporting.
PEN America staff announced their intention to [[unionize|Trade union]]. The ''Los Angeles Times'' reported that workers unionized with Unit of Work, a venture capitalist startup to help workers unionize, and that PEN America recognized the union the day after it was announced.
PEN America celebrated its centenary in 2022 with an event featuring authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Finney Boylan, and Dave Eggers; an exhibition at the New York Historical Society;
In October 2024, longtime CEO Suzanne Nossel announced that she would take a new position, and the organization appointed Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf as interim co-CEOs.
PEN Board of Trustees
The PEN America Board of Trustees is composed of writers, artists, and leaders in the fields of publishing, media, technology, law, finance,
human rights, and
philanthropy.
Jennifer Finney Boylan, author and LGBTQ rights advocate, became president of PEN America on December 11, 2023,
Additional trustees are: Ayad Akhtar, Luis Alberto Urrea, John Chao, Susan Choi, Roxanne Donovan, Patricia Duff,Tom Healy, Elizabeth Hemmerdinger, Linda E. Johnson, Zachary Karabell, Franklin Leonard, Margo Lowy, Ken Miller,Paul Muldoon, Lynn Nottage, George Packer, Jodi Picoult, Alix Ritchie, Anya Salama, Richard Sarnoff, Andrew Solomon, Suzy Wahba, Tara Westover, and Jamie Wolf. Ex-Officio Trustees are Krystyna Poray Goddu and Allison Markin Powell.
The Interim Co-Chief Executive Officers of PEN America are Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf.
Literature
PEN America holds multiple events in the United States throughout the year with the goal of celebrating literature in multiple forms. Many feature prominent authors who appear at festivals and on panel discussions, give lectures, and are featured at PEN America's Authors' Evenings. As a part of its work, PEN America also gives recognition to emerging writers, recognizing them through PEN America's Literary Awards or bringing them to new audiences at public events. Among them are:
Hermione Hoby,
Morgan Jerkins, Crystal Hana Kim, Alice Sola Kim,
Lisa Ko, Layli Long Soldier, Carmen Maria Machado, Darnell L. Moore,
Alexis Okeowo,
Helen Oyeyemi,
Tommy Pico, Jenny Zhang, and
Ibi Zoboi.
PEN World Voices Festival
The PEN World Voices Festival is a week-long series of events in New York City hosted by PEN America each spring. It is the largest international literary festival in the United States, and the only one with a
human rights focus. The festival was founded by
Salman Rushdie in the aftermath of September 11 Attacks, with the aim of broadening channels of dialogue between the United States and the world.
Notable guests have included: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Samantha Bee, Giannina Braschi, Carrie Brownstein, Ron Chernow, Hillary Clinton, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Teju Cole, E. L. Doctorow, Dave Eggers, Roxane Gay, Masha Gessen, John Irving, Marlon James, Saeed Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ottessa Moshfegh, Hasan Minhaj, Sean Penn, Cecile Richards, Salman Rushdie, Gabourey Sidibe, Patti Smith, Zadie Smith, Andrew Solomon, Pia Tafdrup, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Colm Toibin, Amor Towles, and Colson Whitehead.
PEN America Literary Awards
The PEN America Literary Awards annually honor outstanding voices in literature across genres, including fiction, poetry, drama, science and writing, essays, biography, and children's literature. PEN America confers 11 awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes each year, presenting nearly US$350,000 to writers and translators.
As of 2018, the US$75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award is the top award given by PEN America,
PEN America Literary Gala and PEN America Los Angeles Gala
The PEN America Literary Gala in New York and PEN America
Los Angeles Gala are annual events celebrating free expression and the literary arts. These events include tributes and calls to action to audiences of authors, screenwriters, producers, executives, philanthropists, actors, and other devotees of the written word. Honorees have included
Salman Rushdie,
Stephen King, J. K. Rowling,
Toni Morrison, and
Margaret Atwood. Celebrated writers serve as Literary Hosts for the events.
PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program
Founded in 1971, the PEN Prison Writing Program provides hundreds of inmates across the country with writing resources and audiences for their work. The program sponsors an annual writing contest, publishes a free writing handbook for prisoners, provides one-on-one mentoring to inmates whose writing shows promise, and seeks to bring inmates' work to the public through literary events, readings and publications. PEN America also provides assistance to other prison writing initiatives around the country and offers a Writing for Justice Fellowship for writers inside and outside of prison seeking to advance the conversation around the challenges of mass incarceration through creative expression.
Support to writers
The PEN Writers' Emergency Fund assists professional writers in acute, emergency financial crisis.
PEN America Membership committees focus on the interests of literary professionals in different fields and include the Translation Committee and the Children and Young Adult Book Authors Committee.
The Emerging Voices Fellowship is a literary mentorship that aims to provide new writers who are isolated from the literary establishment with the tools, skills, and knowledge they need to launch a professional writing career.
The DREAMing Out Loud program helps aspiring migrant writers.
PEN America also has offered workshops that nurture the writing skills of
,
Taxi, street vendors, and others wage earners.
Publications
PEN America has several periodic publications. They include the
Prison Writing Awards Anthology featuring winning entries from the annual contest for incarcerated authors, and
PEN America Best Debut Short Stories, a yearly anthology of fiction by the recipients of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
Free expression
PEN America's free expression programs defend writers and journalists and protect free expression rights in the United States and around the world. This work includes research and reports on topical issues, advocacy internationally and in the United States, and campaigns on policy issues and on behalf of individual writers and journalists under threat.
Free expression and education
After 2020, PEN America increasingly focused on tracking book bans,
including with its annual Banned in the USA report
and educational censorship in public schools and higher education, including "educational gag order" bills.
In 2023, PEN America, along with publisher Penguin Random House and several banned authors, and parents, filed suit against the Escambia County School District, claiming that book bans violate Constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law.
The organization also hosts regular Free Speech Advocacy Institutes to train young people to advocate for free speech.
Writers at risk
PEN America's work is sustained advocacy on behalf of individual writers and journalists who are being persecuted because of their work. With help from its members and supporters, PEN America carries out campaigns to ensure the freedom, safety, and ability to write and publish without constraint. Advocacy is conducted from PEN America's Washington, D.C., office, as well as through national and international campaigns, events, reports, and delegations. The organization publishes an index of threats to writers
and gives out an annual Freedom to Write award.
PEN America also focuses on countries and regions where free expression is under particular challenge, including
China,
Myanmar,
Russia,
Belarus,
Ukraine, and
Central Asia.
Press freedom and disinformation
PEN America monitors the freedom of the press and safety of journalists in the United States and internationally. PEN America also focuses on issues of fraudulent news and media literacy, and has produced an in-depth report, "Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth", alongside its "News Consumers Bill of Rights and Responsibilities."
Recent work focuses on how to fight disinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with particular focus on Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
Campus free speech
PEN America has a focus on issues surrounding free speech at colleges and universities and seeks to raise awareness of the First Amendment and foster constructive dialogue that upholds the free speech rights of all on campus.
This work includes the "PEN America Principles on Campus Free Speech", and the report "And Campus for All: Diversity, Inclusion, and Freedom of Speech at U.S. Universities".
Digital safety and online abuse
In April 2018, PEN America launched the
Online Harassment Field Manual in an effort to aid writers and journalists who must navigate online spaces by providing resources, tools, and tips to help them respond safely and effectively to incidents of online harassment and
Hate speech.
PEN America also leads workshops to equip writers, journalists, and all those active online with tools and tactics to defend against hateful speech and
Internet troll.
Artists at Risk Connection
The Artists at Risk Connection is an international hub of more than 800 organizations working to protect
artistic freedom around the world by improving access to resources for artists at risk, raising awareness of the threats, and enhancing connections among supporters of artistic freedom. This program extends support to artists of all kinds, encompassing writers, cartoonists, visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and performance artists, as well as other individuals who produce significant creative output.
Controversies
War in Gaza
Several authors requested that their names be removed from PEN referring to dissatisfaction with the organization's position regarding the Gaza war; among them were
Camonghne Felix nominated for the
Jean Stein award, Eugenia Leigh a poetry finalist and Ghassan Zeineddine nominated for a short story. A letter signed by
Naomi Klein,
Lorrie Moore, and dozens of others protested that PEN had not “launched any substantial coordinated support” for Palestinians.
Chris Hedges reports in his The Chris Hedges Report website in March 2024, "PEN's refusal to condemn the deaths in Gaza Strip and Israel targeted killings of writers, academics and journalists, has seen numerous writers withdraw from the annual PEN World Voices Festival in New York and Los Angeles, scheduled for April and May."
Cancellations
PEN America canceled the 2024 World Voices festival and Literary Awards after 28 of the 61 nominated authors withdrew their books from consideration in the annual ceremony as they condemned America for failing to strongly condemn
Gaza genocide.
The organization spoke out on a wide range of topics related to the war and its reverberations for free expression and pledged significant support to Palestinian writers, including a dedicated fund initially set at $100,000, to be administered by the PEN Emergency Fund, to support writers affected by the war.
Labor
Alex N. Press reports in Jacobin, May 1, 2024, "'PEN America management’s recent actions reflect what is becoming an appalling pattern of blatant disrespect towards its unionized staff,' said the union in a statement." And "The union has also filed two unfair labor practices (ULP) against PEN America with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The ULPs concern workers’ just-cause and labor-management committee proposals: workers say the company engaged in 'regressive bargaining' with both proposals, meaning they offered less than they had previously, after bringing on Tanya Khan from Kauff McGuire & Margolis, a union-busting law firm, late last year."
The following month, PEN America reached an agreement with its union.
See also
External links
