A Season for Free Expression |
It’s been a difficult year for that most American of values: free speech. Banning books. Censoring words and identities. Intimidating journalists. Strong-arming universities. Arresting, detaining and attempting deportation of people who disagree with the government. This giving season, consider contributing to an organization that protects your speech, in big moments and small ones. Thanks to a generous match, all donations up to $25,000 leading up to Giving Tuesday will be doubled in impact.
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They can try to ban our stories, but they can't ban our style. This holiday season, show your support for the fight against book bans by shopping PEN America original T-shirts, tote bags, sweaters, mugs, and more. |
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Increasing Access for Writers in Prison |
PEN America’s new Incarcerated Writers Bureau provides literary professionals with resources on how to work with incarcerated writers and journalists. Formerly incarcerated writer Derek Trumbo spoke to us about how PEN America’s resources have and will continue to open doors for writers behind bars. IWB, he told us, could facilitate real change — “not just in the judicial system and how it works but also in the [literary] industry and in the minds of the people that we return home to.”
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Enter to Win Stephen King Book Bundle |
We recently reported that Stephen King was the most banned author in U.S. public schools last year. In an effort to help more readers discover banned books, King, his publisher Vintage, PEN America, and Out of Print are giving away a banned book bundle to five winners. |
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This week’s Member Spotlight features PEN America member Maryka Biaggio’s Gun Girl and the Tall Guy, a gripping historical novel based on the true story of Celia and Ed Cooney. Through vivid, evocative prose and a cinematic storytelling style, Biaggio captures the grit and tension of 1920s Brooklyn, immersing readers in a world where love and crime collide. |
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Teachers may be reasonably fed up with kids calling out “6-7” in the middle of class, but police issuing “tickets” to students sends “the wrong message to our students about freedom of speech, what the First Amendment is, and how and when to use their freedom of expression,” our Kristen Shahverdian wrote. |
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‘Quiet, Piggy’
In the span of a few days, President Donald Trump interrupted a reporter by saying “quiet, piggy” and called an ABC journalist “a terrible person and a terrible reporter.”
Read about escalating attacks >>
How news organizations can protect their employees >> Poetry As Resistance
Authoritarian leaders target poets because their words—filled with lyricism, story, and feeling—can expose the cracks of oppression in daily life. To mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, PEN America and PEN International highlighted writers and journalists from around the world who are at risk for their expression.
Read more about writers behind bars >>
Take action to support them >> Butt Out of Schools
An installment of the hit children’s series Butt or Face? drew the attention of two Texas school districts reviewing pending library acquisitions under a law that bans materials with “indecent or profane content.” PEN America spoke with the series’ author, Kari Lavelle, who explained how the book thrills and educates young readers: “Before they know it, they’re learning all sorts of STEM-focused science about animals — adaptations, camouflage, mimicry.”
Read the full blog >> ‘Read the Whole Book’
Amid the alarming surge in book bans across the United States, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Malinda Lo has become an ardent champion of the right to read. For the second installment of our interview series about the role sex plays in literature, Lo discusses pro-censorship groups’ habit of plucking sexual content from its context, misconstruing its meaning in service of their own agenda."
Read the interview >> Monitoring ‘Anti-American’ Content Is Anti-American
A dangerous new policy will vet immigrants’ social media accounts for “anti-American” content. “With this new policy, the United States is turning its back on the dissidents that it once prided itself in protecting,” wrote
Amanda Wells, program coordinator for Digital Safety and Free Expression, and Alexia Gardner of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
Read it in the Kansas City Star >> Censoring Trans Stories
PEN America and other advocates expressed alarm over a change to Alabama Public Library policies that mandates relocating or removing materials “regarding transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders.”
Read the full statement here >>
Recommended reading for Trans Awareness Month >> |
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"I cannot be anything but political; it is personal and a matter of life or death." |
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