PEN America: Recent Episodes
PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
Postgraduate Fellow Emma Stammen talks with 2018-2019 Writing for Justice Fellow David Sanchez about his debut novel "All Day is a Long Time"—a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story encompassing addiction, mental illness, homelessness, incarceration, and sobriety.
To learn more about the importance of prison journalism and the challenges of reporting from behind bars during the COVID-19 pandemic, we spoke with Yukari Kane and Shaheen Pasha, co-founders and -executive directors of the Prison Journalism Project. In this episode, Kane and Pasha discuss the power of teaching journalism behind bars, particularly during a pandemic; the importance of integrating prison journalism into not only the larger field of journalism, but also broader conversations around criminal justice reform; the nuance of defining the genre of “prison journalism”; and the challenges of fact-checking, verification, and credibility in a space with limited access to the internet and outside sources.
This podcast episode was written, hosted, and produced by Frances Keohane, with help from Caits Meissner and Robert Pollock.
In this Works of Justice episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Erika Cohn, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning director and producer. Her newest documentary, "Belly of the Beast," exposes modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California women's prisons.
This moving and informative interview followed a private screening of the film for our Prison Writing Mentor community. Erika and Mery Concepción, Prison and Justice Writing Volunteer Coordinator, spoke about the implications of forced sterilization behind bars, how incarceration is itself a tool for eugenics and population control, and the challenges of defining consent in a space characterized by its lack of autonomy. They also discussed what it means to produce a trauma-informed film, and how to navigate and think creatively about obstacles presented by censorship and lack of access to information.
This podcast episode was written and hosted by Mery Concepción and produced by Frances Keohane, with help from Caits Meissner and Robert Pollock.
In this Works of Justice episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Bruce Western, a professor of Sociology and Social Justice and codirector of the Justice Lab at Columbia University. A leader in the field of criminal justice reform, Dr. Western has conducted extensive research on various issues within mass incarceration, including reentry, the effects of fines and fees, solitary confinement, and more. During the pandemic, he has worked alongside other experts in publishing the report "Decarcerating Correctional Facilities during COVID-19", as well as the whitepaper "Recommendations for Prioritization and Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccine in Prisons and Jails".
In this episode, Dr. Western discussed decarceration strategies that could improve public health outcomes for all, challenges with vaccine distribution inside correctional facilities, and the importance of harboring compassion and empathy particularly in times of crisis.
Hosted and produced by Nicolette Natale with support from Frances Keohane, Caits Meissner, Robert Pollock
In this episode of our Works of Justice series, we had the pleasure of speaking with Maurice Chammah, a journalist and staff writer at The Marshall Project whose reporting on the criminal justice system has been published by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, and Mother Jones, among others. His first book, Let the Lord Sort Them, was just released. Haunting and absorbing, Let the Lord Sort Them traces the rise and fall of the death penalty in the United States by focusing on Texas as a microcosm of our country's preoccupation with capital punishment.
In this interview, in addition to sharing his professional and writing trajectories through and beyond the book, Maurice spoke in depth about his experience as a Writing for Justice mentor for Fellow Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, and about how his relationship with Thomas impacted his own work.
Hosted by Frances Keohane Researched, written and produced by Frances Keohane with guidance from Caits Meissner, Robert Pollock, and Stephen Fee
In Part II of our Family Through The Walls series, we meet Dunasha Payne through an intimate and moving conversation about parenting behind bars. Dunasha is an alumna of Rehabilitation Through The Arts, which provides extensive arts access behind the walls of six New York State correctional facilities. There, she proved herself a talented writer, actor, and singer. She is now the Program Coordinator of the Young Women’s Initiative at Drama Club, a non-profit organization that provides theater programming and mentorship to young, justice-involved individuals in New York City.
In her current work, Dunasha pulls from her intersecting experiences—as a justice-involved woman, as a mother, and in the arts—to mentor and connect meaningfully with the young people she teaches.
Hosted by Caits Meissner Researched and written by Frances Keohane and Nicolette Natale with guidance from Robert Pollock
Founder and CEO of WE GOT US NOW, a nonprofit advocacy organization that amplifies the stories of and challenges faced by children and young adults with incarcerated parents, Ebony Underwood is a leader in the fight to expand awareness of and rights for the millions who have experienced parental incarceration.
In this podcast episode, Underwood speaks intimately and powerfully about her dad’s incarceration and its effects on her various and intersecting identities: advocate, social entrepreneur, actionist, daughter, and writer. She also details the impact of COVID-19 on the recent efforts of WE GOT US NOW.
Hosted and produced by Nicolette Natale with support from Frances Keohane, Caits Meissner, and Robert Pollock
In this mini-Works of Justice episode, we spoke with celebrated poet Kaveh Akbar, who will be performing Terry Hedin's poem "El Reno" in our "Break Out" Event on November 17th. Terry's piece won Third Place this year in PEN America's Prison Writing Contest.
Kaveh spoke honestly and poetically about the privilege and responsibility of holding another person's writing in one's own mouth, and about the importance of poetry as a tool for empathy and connection—especially in our time of unprecedented isolation and increased threats to free speech.
Hosted and produced by Frances Keohane with support from Caits Meissner and Robert Pollock
To learn about how local officials within the criminal justice system can be actors—if unlikely ones—in expanding the rights of justice-involved individuals, we spoke to Lucy Lang.
The former director of John Jay’s Institute for Innovation in Prosecution and a candidate in the race for Manhattan district attorney, Lang has a reputation for being a leader in reform. In this episode, she helps us understand the scope and significance of the district attorney’s work—particularly in the era of COVID-19, when the leadership of criminal justice officials is paramount in ensuring the safety of individuals behind bars and of their communities on the outside. In doing so, Lang reminds us of the importance of voting in local elections. Echoing our own mission at PEN America, Lang also speaks about the intersection of public policy and writing: how storytelling can be a tool for advocacy and empowerment.
Hosted and produced by Nicolette Natale with support from Frances Keohane and Robert Pollock
Listen to The Lucas Brothers(Netflix/On Drugs, FOX/Lucas Bros Moving Co, 22 Jump Street), Keith and Kenny, two of the freshest, most dynamic faces in comedy and leaders in exposing the insidious nature of our criminal justice system. The brothers peak about their lives and engage in a Q&A with young people from POPS (Pain of the Prison System) the Club and other organizations across the country who support our underserved youth.
Intro by Nicolette Natale Hosted by Robert Pollock Video at http://bit.ly/popslucasbros Read the Lucas Bros Vulture Essay at https://www.vulture.com/article/our-brother-kaizen.html
2018 Emerging Voices Fellow Jubi Arriola-Headley talks about the lack of equity in creative writing, the importance of essential truth over fact, and accepting the new virtual norm as it relates to community, claiming connections can be made through a screen. It's all just a matter of intention.
*
Jubi Arriola-Headley is a blacqueer poet, storyteller, & first-generation United Statesian born to Bajan (Barbadian) parents. His first collection of poems, original kink, is forthcoming (October 2020) from Sibling Rivalry Press. A 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow & an alumnx of the VONA & Lambda Literary writing communities, Jubi recently graduated from the University of Miami with his MFA in poetry. You can find him at justjubi.com
Pulled from the vault for your listening enjoyment, it is the 2017 Emerging Voices Final Reading, live from the Skirball Cultural Center.
The 2017 Fellows Soleil Davíd, Peter H.Z. Hsu, Kirin Khan, Chinyere Nwodim, and Jessica Shoemaker read their poetry and fiction, with introductions written by their mentors Jade Chang, Amelia Gray, Ashaki M. Jackson (read by Douglas Kearney), Dana Johnson, and J. Ryan Stradal.
To learn more about reentry services during the pandemic, we talked to Alejo Rodriguez of Exodus Transitional Community and the Parole Preparation Project. Rodriguez was incarcerated for over 32 years and has turned his personal experiences—namely, being repeatedly denied parole because of a violent conviction—into powerful advocacy.
PEN America’s summer intern Nicolette Natale talked with Rodriguez about how this discrimination is influencing decisions about who gets released during the pandemic, reentry efforts during a time of social distancing, and the overall importance of community building to end social and economic inequity.
1999 Emerging Voices Fellow Dr. Stephanie Han talks to us about polyculturalism, protests, and the pandemic; our increased ability to conceptualize a narrative after the internet; and delivers an inspirational rant on why we write that's worthy of a Ted Talk. Listen and then sign up for one of her creative writing classes this summer. Visit stephaniehan.com for details.
*
Stephanie Han is an author, speaker, and educator. Her debut short story collection “Swimming in Hong Kong” (Willow Springs Books/distributed by University of Washington Press) won the Paterson Fiction Prize and was the sole finalist for both the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and the Spokane Prize, in addition to making the shortlist for the Asian Books Blog Award. Individual stories won awards from Nimrod International Literary Journal, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, and the South China Morning Post. Han is City University of Hong Kong’s first English literature PhD. She resides and teaches in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Our society is in the middle of a radical awakening. The twin pandemics of COVID-19 and the state-sanctioned killing of Black people have caused millions to rally for justice. “A STRONGER DESIRE TO LIVE” draws together a roster of powerful artists standing in to voice a tremendous series of prose, poetry, and drama works penned by award-winning incarcerated writers who have all experienced the brutal realities of what our nation calls justice.
Tied together with original music by Kenyatta Emmanuel (https://kenyattaemmanuel.com), an artist and activist who has shared his music from Sing Sing to Carnegie Hall, the program is a moving tribute to the immense—and often hidden—talent behind the walls.
The live release event was in partnership with Haymarket Books and featured an original slideshow with artwork sourced from Artists at Risk Connection, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, and The Confined Arts, and invited listeners to join in a live chat.
View the amazing artwork slideshow at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxPA9FWkuIM
Among the many notes of wisdom in this conversation with our Prison and Justice Writing Program Manager, Robbie Pollock, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall contextualizes the history of systematic murder of Black Americans at the hands of the law, and a offers a holistic and inciting call to action around reconciling white privilege and being in right allyship with Black Americans in this critical moment and beyond.
Gloria is a valuable member of our Prison Writing Committee who holds an extensive biography that includes award-winning civil rights attorney, highly regarded author of numerous books, articles and plays, a sought after legal commentator , and Professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).
For authors whose books were slated to publish during a pandemic, like Tessie Castillo’s, that usual release process has been turned on its head. Castillo is a journalist and the author of Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row, published by Black Rose on March 12, 2020, and co-authored by Michael J. Braxton, Lyle May, Terry Robinson and George Wilkerson; four men on death row in North Carolina. Castillo met her co-authors while conducting a journaling class. The project is a meditation on her unlikely friendship with the men—after all, classes conducted by outsiders on death row are indeed rare—and features thirty essays in the men’s own words about their experiences.
We bid our outgoing Prison and Justice Intern Kate Cammell farewell with her final Works of Justice interview: a powerful conversation with Crimson Letters editor George Wilkerson about the power of storytelling and how he finds hope in his daily circumstance. Wilkerson is a PEN America Award winner for his 2018 Memoir “Limp Gray Fur.” His writing has been published in The Marshall Project, Compassion and The Upper Room.
Intro by Mark Gallagher
This incredibly moving performance was the launch of the 2020 issue of CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action. Entitled “REVERB: VOICES AGAINST MASS INCARCERATION,” and inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, this issue honors the many voices that echo across time and space in protest of mass incarceration.
Magazine link: https://curamag.com Video of Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSLqggVrd0
For this important work of student activism, Fordham University’s creative writing program partnered with PEN America’s prison writing program to curate some of the most talented incarcerated writers and social justice voices.
Louise Waa'kaa'igan (11:33) Sterling Cunio greeting (15:03) Aaron Samuels reading Sterling Cunio's harrowing prose (15:47) Liza Jessie Peterson (34:52) Carlos Andrés Gómez reading B. Batchelor's poetry (42:58) Nicole Shawan Junior (50:09) Justin Hicks (1:05:51) Conclusion and Q&A (1:11:32)
cohosted by Dr. Nia Witherspoon and Anaissa Gonzales
intro by Mark Gallagher intro music by Orquesta Arrecife
To understand the particular challenges faced by incarcerated women during COVID 19—of whom nearly 80% are mothers, to name one glaring example—and to learn about how COVID-19 is amplifying them, we called Keri Blakinger, the first formerly incarcerated staff writer at The Marshall Project.
Keri also reports for the Houston Chronicle and co-hosts their podcast Behind the Walls about criminal justice in Texas. Keri’s thorough and thoughtful reporting has led to prison reforms, including a state-level effort to get 3-D printed dentures to incarcerated communities.
Read Keri's interview in PEN America's World Press Freedom Day 2020 effort: https://pen.org/local-journalist-heroes-keri-blakinger/
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
https://pen.org/worksofjustice
Normally, this is the time for the EV Spring Reading. Friends, loved ones, and the local literary community all gather to meet the fellows and to hear them perform. With the shelter in place orders in effect, we aren't able to host the 2020 EVs in public, so they're reading on the podcast instead! In addition, Amanda talks to Megan, Damien, Claire, Shannon, and M. about the uncertain times we are living in, a Tongva arts journal, who should play you in your movie, unusual superpowers, roommates, and writing sex, proving that even virtual connections can be life-affirming, and that stories are powerful beyond measure. To learn more about the 2020 Fellows, visit pen.org
To learn more about the particular challenges COVID-19 poses for incarcerated youth, PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program Intern, Liz Fiore called up one of the strongest leading advocates in the juvenile justice field, Vincent Schiraldi.
With a national reputation as a fearless reformer, Vincent is currently a senior research scientist at Columbia School of Social Work and Co-Director of the Columbia Justice Lab. Previously, Vincent founded the policy think tank, the Justice Policy Institute, served as director of the juvenile corrections in Washington DC, and then as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation. Most recently Schiraldi served as Senior Advisor to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife OPEN DOORS Reality Poets "Streets Don't Love Nobody" https://youtu.be/6G3M2gUN0UE https://opendoorsnyc.org
Listen to Caits Meissner, PEN America Prison and Justice Writing’s program director, in conversation with Writing For Justice Fellow Justin Rovillos Monson for the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site’s Searchlight Series hosted by Sean Kelley.
Audio courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site https://www.facebook.com/Eastern-State-Penitentiary-125028907507788/
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
1999 Emerging Voices Fellow Shonda Buchanan talks about nurturing communities that reach beyond the page, writing your life into existence, and the importance of language. Listen to hear her explain to fellowship manager Amanda Fletcher why you should never call her a performer.
**
Shonda Buchanan is an award-winning poet, author, journalist and educator at The College of William & Mary, Hampton University, Loyola Marymount University, among other places. Her recently published memoir BLACK INDIAN explores her mixed-race identity. She also is the author of WHO’S AFRAID OF BLACK INDIANS? and EQUIPOISE: POEMS FROM GODDESS COUNTRY, and editor of two anthologies, VOICES FROM LEIMERT PARK and VOICES FROM LEIMERT PARK REDUX. She is the literary editor of Harriet Tubman Press and a member of the advisory board of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts and Angels Flight • literary west. To learn more, visit shondabuchanan.com.
Inside the information deserts of prison and jails, incarcerated people are often unable to locate facts-based news about both the outside world, and the changing conditions of their own lives.
On this episode, Lawrence Bartley, Director of News Inside—a free publication that curates news related directly to incarcerated lives from The Marshall Project—helps us understand the challenge of news and incarceration, shares about his own efforts to address the information divide, and underscores the importance of continuing to tell stories during this challenging time.
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife Skinny Hanas - Free My Sons (Feat. JRoundz) courtesy of No Tresspassers Film ( IG @skinnyhanas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgcodqBJ-fv4-UuidIQN2vQ )
Seeking clarity for our own small contribution to pandemic-era reporting, on Monday, April 5, 2020, PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program intern Kate Cammell asked Josie Duffy Rice, President of The Appeal, and Co-Host of the Justice In America podcast, for some advice. What is journalism’s role in this historical moment? What criminal justice news items should we be looking for? And, needing it ourselves, how might we stay sane in the process of staying informed?
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
On Friday March 27, 2020, PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program intern Kate Cammell had a chance to speak with Fair and Just Prosecution’s Executive Director Miriam Krimsky and Research and Policy Associate Scarlet Neath about their recent statement—along with thirty other elected prosecutors—addressing the rights and needs of those in custody during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
In celebration of the launch of her memoir–HOME IS A STRANGER–in the middle of a pandemic, 2009 EV Parnaz Foroutan talks about shaking the self in times of strife, the reckoning required to digest suffering, and falling in love with the people we used to be.
**
Parnaz Foroutan is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Girl from the Garden (Ecco 2015) which received the PEN Emerging Voices Award and was named one of Booklist’s “Top 10 First Novels” of 2015. Her memoir Home is a Stranger (Chicago Review Press 2020) is about her journey back to Iran as a young woman, two decades after her family fled the rise of the Islamic Theocracy. Her essays have appeared on NBC Think, The Sun and other literary journals. The essay that made her mother proudest, entitled "America" and addressing the refugee crisis, appears in the anthology Radical Hope (Vintage 2017).
2003 Emerging Voices Fellow, poet, teacher, and community activist Rocío Carlos teaches us how to make a zine, and talks about taking attendance, getting caught in the ditch, and growing up haunted in Los Angeles.
**
Rocío Carlos attends from the land of the chaparral. Born and raised in Los Ángeles, she is widely acknowledged to have zero short term memory but knows the names of trees. She is the author of (the other house) (The Accomplices/ Civil Coping Mechanisms), Attendance (The Operating System) and A Universal History of Infamy: Those of This America (LACMA/Golden Spike Press). Her poems have appeared in Chaparral, Angel City Review, The Spiral Orb, and Cultural Weekly. She collaborates as a partner at Wirecutter Collective and is a teacher of the language arts. Her favorite trees are the olmo (elm)and aliso (sycamore)and you can find her on the socials @ninabruja7
Authoring Advocacy: Bearing Witness in an Era of Mass Incarceration
What is the responsibility of writers to confront our era of mass incarceration, and how do we bear witness without assuming voyeuristic or exploitative perspectives?
Featuring 2018 PEN America Writing For Justice Fellows Justin Rovillos Monson and Reginald Dwayne Betts, and Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Witness Program writers Roshan Abraham, Christina Olivares, & Sarah Wang. A closing conversation, moderated by Victoria Law, will explore the ethics, challenges and necessity of writing about mass incarceration from a variety of perspectives and lived experiences.
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is a national nonprofit dedicated to the belief that Asian American stories deserve to be told.
Intro by Mark Gallagher Event Photos by Giselle Robledo: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJd5bhu Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P2k2bA7E2s
The 2019 Emerging Voices Fellows meet for a last meal and talk to Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher about their experiences in EV, commenting on the impact their mentors, master classes, and professional editing sessions had on their writing. Featuring Dare Williams, Judy Choi, Anthony Hoang, T.K. Lê, and Fajer Alexander Khansa. With a cameo from little Lucian.
**
Dare Williams is an HIV-positive poet, artist, and activist native to Southern California who is currently working on a poetry collection confronting the erasure of queer culture.
Judy Choi lives in LA with her 11-year-old son and is currently working on a novel based on her Texas childhood.
Anthony Hoang is writing a novel about a Chinese-Vietnamese family set in 1970s Vietnam and present-day America.
T.K. Lê is from Westminster, California. Her current collection of poems is inspired by the Lambretta her father threw into the ocean in the hours before he left Vietnam in 1975.
Fajer Alexander Khansa was born and raised in Lattakia, Syria, and Tokyo, Japan. He is working on a short story collection.
Celebrating the release of the 2019 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology, PEN America and The Poetry Project present an evening of exceptional work from currently incarcerated writers, staged by a series of dynamic authors, actors and activists.
Part 2 of 2
Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Eric Berryman read The Letters of Madeleine L’Engle and Ahmad Rahman (00:00) Cecilia Gentili reads "Poker Face" by Heather Jarvis (17:07) Cortney Lamar Charlston reads "All Of Us, In Prison" by Jevon Jackson (38:35) Rachel Eliza Griffiths reads "As I Hear The Rain" by Douglas Weed (40:46)
Celebrating the release of the 2019 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology, PEN America and The Poetry Project present an evening of exceptional work from currently incarcerated writers, staged by a series of dynamic authors, actors and activists.
Part 1 of 2
Cortney Lamar Charleston reads Self Portrait As State Property by P.M. Dunne (00:20) Margo Jefferson reads “Thorazine, Haldol & Coffee: My Life in a Prison Mental Health Ward,” by Michael Kaiser (03:58) T Kira Madden reads “My Co-Worker,” Edward Ji (14:50) Shaun Leonardo reads "Geode" by David A. Pickett (15:33) Rachel Eliza Griffiths reads “Time Reversal Invariance" by David Pickett (26:55) Kevin Boone, Tamika Graham, Milton Jones, Paul Kim, and Edwin Santan perform “Never 2 Late” by John Benjamin (29:00) T Kira Madden reads "Under the Bridge" by Christiana Justice (42:15) Robert Pollock reads "Monologue" by Sean Thomas Dunne (45:41)
Presenting an ALL NEW selection from awardees of the 2019 PEN America/Edward Bunker Prize in Fiction
The September 18, 2019 BREAKOUT event (https://pen.org/event/break-out-brooklyn-book-festival-19/) will feature the 2019 PEN Prison Writing Awards winners and will launch our second annual print anthology, 'As I Hear the Rain.'
Listen to incredible readers bring these works to life, recorded at the Celebration of Edward Bunker event on May 30, 2019 at the Road Theatre in North Hollywood, LA. Special thanks to the Edward Bunker family.
Laurie O'Brien reads 'Tetris' by James Beavers (0:17) bridgette bianca reads 'Fireside: or immaterial burns' by David Webb (6:09) Dorothy Randall Gray reads 'First World Problems' by Kevin Schaeffer (13:06) Darrel Larson reads 'The Last Time I saw Chet' by Sam Jenkins (22:09) Laurie Okin reads 'Two Birds One Stone' by Brendan Rao (37:39) Christopher Soto reads 'Rogers Park: Area 52' by Antonio Bowie Rivera (49:15) Carl Weintraub reads 'Geode' by David Pickett (58:36)
Audio Credit: Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
Illustration for episode graphic by Jeremy Wilson Bios of readers https://pen.org/event/celebrating-edward-bunker/
This September, in commemoration of the Attica Riots, PEN America and The Poetry Project launch BREAK OUT: a movement to (re)integrate incarcerated writers into literary community. Throughout the month, over two dozen local reading series in New York City—and across the country—will feature the work of a currently incarcerated writer. This first-of-its-kind event series will culminate in a celebration of the 2019 PEN America Prison Writing Awards, September 18th at the Brooklyn Book Festival.
Here, we share just a few of the most dynamic readings from past Breakout events:
Junot Diaz reads an excerpt of 'Walla Walla IMU' by Arthur Longworth
Rebecca Carroll of WNYC reads Catherine LaFleur's "Gardener's Memory"
Joshua Bennett reads 'The Storm' by Edward Ji
John Wray reads 'The Centaur's Son' by Burl Corbett (a Pushcart Prize nominee)
Randall Horton reading 'No Moon' by Spoon Jackson
Toure reads 'Beauty' by Julian Concepcion
'how to survive in prison a brief history of my first 23 years in prison' by Yvette M. Louiselle
Khalil Cumberbatch reads 'When the Bombs Go Off' by Ezekiel Caligiuri
Mitchell Jackson reads “Letter to My Grandnephew” by Christopher Meyers
--Special thanks to the many media partners and readers who have partnered with PEN to share incarcerated writers' works with the wider literary world.
https://pen.org/breakout-a-movement
Audio Credit: Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
Juan Felipe Herrera made history when he became the first Mexican-American to serve as a United States Poet Laureate. Herrera will be interviewed by Puerto Rican poet, activist, and actress Caridad de la Luz, known as La Bruja. Both poets will read from their works, discuss how young writers can speak poetry to power, and examine Herrera’s latest book Jabberwalking, which is described by The New York Times Book Review as “a bursting, bubbling, brain-bending adventure.” The evening will open with a reading of works by young immigrants who have been mentored in PEN America’s writing workshops. Bring an open heart—and questions for the poets—to this unforgettable examination of art, activism, youth, and justice.
Soledad Castillo and Gabriel Méndez left Honduras and crossed the southern border into the United States as young teenagers. It wasn’t to “game the system” or commit any crime; it was to escape the dangers of gang violence and the horrors of sexual abuse. Their stories, part of a literature of testimony, are captured and shared by Voice of Witness, an oral history initiative that disseminates the words of the oppressed to fight for human rights. PEN America is proud to welcome Castillo and Méndez, who will describe their journeys from injustice to freedom. They will be joined by Voice of Witness co-founder and bestselling author Dave Eggers, as well as the organization’s executive director Mimi Lok, for a discussion about how individuals’ stories that depict injustice can transform narrators and audiences alike.
Listen up. As rhetoric flies, politics grind, and heat increases along the United States’ southern border, the experiences of those who have risked their lives to cross from Mexico into the United States—and the voices of their families—must be heard. While the federal government grows ever more hostile and dismissive toward narratives of immigration, the PEN World Voices Festival features stories written by DREAMers, under the creative guidance of authors Álvaro Enrigue, Lisa Ko, and Charlie Vázquez. Don’t miss this celebration of truth, youth, and courage at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
Strong, bold female protagonists can often inspire readers to overcome restrictions that threaten to interrupt their own lives. Pulitzer-winning author Jennifer Egan, Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak, and Portuguese writer Inês Pedrosa have created unforgettable female characters including a pioneering U.S. Navy diver, an adventurous trio of Muslim students at Oxford, and three generations of spirited Portuguese women. Join us for a special discussion as these writers tell author and editor Elissa Schappell why they chose to bring these women into worlds that were not always ready, or able, to deal with them.
In poetry and prose, the work of Jorge Luis Borges is mysterious and accessible, epic and intimate. This world-shaping Argentinian writer fused the compulsively readable elements of pulp material with fascinating intellectual subject matter. Borges explored a wide variety of topics across stories, poetry, novels, and essays that have garnered international acclaim. His influence can still be felt in the works of renowned writers around the world. Latin American creative giants Rodrigo Rey Rosa and Rodrigo Fresán are among the contemporary literary figures who owe a debt to Borges. In this remarkable event, the two authors talk to Inmaculada Lara Bonilla and Claudia Salazar Jiménez about the meaning of their predecessor’s legacy, and how it influenced their own amazing works.
For many men, their relationship with their father will be the most challenging that they ever experience–and the most difficult to talk about. Colm Tóibín’s most recent book, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, is about the fathers of Irish literary greats Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Édouard Louis’s Who Killed My Father is a searing indictment of the French economic system that destroyed the violent and homophobic father Louis hated, and whose name the author renounced, yet whose suffering he could not turn away from. Join Louis and Tóibín for a free-ranging conversation around the subject of fathers–in literature and life.
This event is part of the World Voices Festival My Story stream, supported by Amazon Literary Partnership.
Placing the personal story in the public sphere is one of the most powerful and transformative of acts, liberating the storyteller and also giving the listener a deeper and more empathetic understanding. When the stories are life altering, even life threatening, the effect is even more profound: witnessing genocide or war crimes, fleeing your homeland as an economic or sexual refugee and, in the era of #MeToo, recounting episodes of rape or other forms of sexual abuse. Seven writers from around the world give powerful and very personal testimony about what happened to them. With Romeo Oriogun, Scholastique Mukasonga, Grace Talusan, Paul Tran, Pajtim Statovci, Édouard Louis, and Shiori Ito. Hosted by Amana Fontanella-Khan, opinion editor, The Guardian US.
This event is part of the World Voices Festival My Story stream, supported by Amazon Literary Partnership.
Against a backdrop of war, religious strife, and post-colonial conflict, Pakistani writers are producing some of the most dramatically potent, humorous, and imaginative stories published today. Mohammed Hanif, who proved himself a master of satire with A Case of Exploding Mangoes, returns this year with Red Birds, laying bare the absurdities wrought by war and the West’s engagement with Pakistan. H.M. Naqvi follows his critically acclaimed debut Home Boy with The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack, a wry and inventive novel that channels the cosmopolitan charm and creative energy of Karachi. Join us as these accomplished authors talk to author, critic, and editor John Freeman about Pakistani writing today and the county’s burgeoning literary output.
Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, and an actor. Bunker wrote numerous books— some of which have been adapted into major motion pictures featuring prominent actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight— and was a screenwriter on Straight Time (1978), Runaway Train (1985) and Animal Factory (2000). Bunker also appears on screen as an actor in a number of films, most famously as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs. And like many of the writers who reach out to the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program, Mr. Bunker was involved with the justice system for decades before finding significant success as a writer and actor.
The PEN America/Edward Bunker Prize in Fiction awards the work of a cohort of incarcerated fiction writers who show exceptional talent and merit in the genre, and honors Mr. Bunker’s work in illuminating the tenacious path from the identity of prisoner to writer. We are proud to celebrate not only Mr. Bunker’s contribution to letters and film, but also his continued influence on a new generation of writers who show deep dedication to, and passion for, the craft of writing, and a compelling creative vision.
Listen to close friend of Edward Bunker, Danny Trejo, describe their long friendship and lessons in staying humble. Eddie Bunker's wife, Jennifer Steele, and son, Brendan Bunker join Eddie's agent Jeanne Field, PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program director Caits Meissner, and Program manager Robert Pollock in discussing Eddie Bunker's legacy.
This event celebrated the legacy of Eddie Bunker with a preview of award-winning works from the 2019 winners, read by bridgette bianca, Dorothy Randall Gray, Darrell Larson, Laurie O’Brien, Laurie Okin, Christopher Soto, and Carl Weintraub.
Read more about the event and award at: https://pen.org/event/celebrating-edward-bunker/
Audio Credit: Intro by Mark Gallagher Music by Orquesta Arrecife
Many Americans agree that our criminal justice system needs thorough reform—but how can public sentiment lead to effective systemic changes?
Moderated by Andrea J Ritchie (2:12) Author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
with the 2018-2019 Writing for Justice Fellows Priscilla Ocen (9:03) Nadja Eisenberg-Guyot (13:21) Beth Shelburne (16:52) Keeona Harris (21:06) David Sanchez (26:08) David Heska Wanbli Weiden (28:30)
featuring criminal justice experts: Fred Patrick (45:50) Director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice
Lorenzo Jones (58:03) Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice
Marlon Peterson (1:07:14) Host of the Decarcerated Podcast and an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity
Bianca Tylek (1:09:21) Founder & Executive Director of Worth Rises
Kandra Clark (1:16:14) Exodus Transitional Community
On behalf of the Art for Justice Fund, PEN America is honored to engage the literary community and confront our era of mass incarceration through the Writing For Justice Fellowship.
Read our interview with host Andrea J. Ritchie here: https://pen.org/works-of-justice-andrea-j-ritchie-interview/
Special thanks to the Center for Social Innovation for hosting the event: https://nyc.socialinnovation.org/
What risks do incarcerated writers face when their words travel beyond prison walls? And how do audiences of their work read, honor, and bear witness without assuming voyeuristic or exploitative perspectives? The PEN America Prison Writing Program commissioned currently incarcerated writers to reflect on these and other tensions between the realm of public readership and the often hidden creative life in prison. Dynamic authors, poets, activists, and actors Mahogany L. Browne, Aja Monet, Jon Sands, Christopher Soto, Kirya Traber and Jecoina Vinson bring the writers’ messages to life on the stage.
Featuring original work by: Brian Batchelor, Peter Dunne, Greg Goodman, Lacino Hamilton, Elizabeth Hawes, Matthew Feeney, Benjamin Frandsen, Arthur Longworth, Justin Rovillos Monson, Santonio Murff and Joe Vanderford
See more about the event at: https://pen.org/works-of-justice-on-writing-in-prison/
As part of Rare Bird Books, Julia Callahan has co-hosted a small press Author Evening with Chris Heiser from Unnamed Press for years. Now, from the floor of her apartment in the Los Feliz neighborhood of LA, she waxes philosophical on roller derby as a stress reliever, how to be an active member of your literary community, and living inside the story of Los Angeles.
*
As Sales and Marketing Director at Rare Bird, Julia Callahan oversees all aspects of sales, distribution, marketing, and author relations. Prior to joining the Rare Bird team, she worked for four years as Tyson Cornell’s marketing and publicity assistant at Book Soup where she helped coordinate thousands of events each year, notably The Doors’ 40th Anniversary, Ralph Steadman, Tony Curtis, and many others. She grew up in Santa Cruz and has a BA in English. Find Julia on the socials @pesty1079
This evening of conversations with writers, editors and publishers confronts the challenges and ethics of publishing incarcerated writers, and reimagining the boundaries of what is possible.
In addressing the impact of mass incarceration, there is an increasing need to center the voices of those directly impacted—not only as experts, but as integrated contributors. But for writers in prison, access to participation in the literary community is limited by not only stigma and physical restriction, but financial barriers, lack of technology, and censorship. For those who manage to publish against the odds, publicity efforts require creative strategy when book tours are impossible, interviews channel through authority review, advances are siphoned by the state, and context automatically forces categorization by the author’s relationship with incarceration or crime, regardless of the work’s content.
Kathryn Belden is vice president and executive editor at Scribner. She is the editor of The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins.
Eli Hager is a staff writer at The Marshall Project covering issues including juvenile justice, fines and fees, and prosecutors and public defenders. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and elsewhere.
Randall Horton is the author of The Definition of Place (2006) and Lingua Franca of Ninth Street (2009), both from Main Street Rag. He also serves as senior editor for Willow Books and editor-in-chief for Tidal Basin Review.
Mitchell S. Jackson is the author of Survival Math. His debut novel The Residue Years was praised by publications, including The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Times (London). He serves on the faculty at New York University and Columbia University.
Tim O’Connell is an editor at Vintage Anchor, A. A. Knopf, and Pantheon Books. He is the editor of Cherry by Nicholas Walker.
Special thanks to partner Housing Works Bookstore Cafe: https://www.housingworks.org/locations/bookstore-cafe
Hosted by Mariame Kaba, activist, organizer, and founder of Project NIA (which advocates the end of youth incarceration), editors and curators of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences Working Toward Freedom (Haymarket Press) will read and discuss the narratives of people surviving the effects of long-term incarceration.
Read our interview with artist and contributor Sarah Ross here: https://pen.org/works-of-justice-sarah-ross-the-long-term/
Open Doors Reality Poets launches their anthology Wheeling & Healing, edited by the Reality Poets. The Reality Poets invited residents of their long-term care facility, neighbors on Roosevelt Island, mentors, and friends to contribute poems toward a message of realness, resilience, and healing.
OPEN DOORS is an arts and justice initiative, on Roosevelt Island, based in the long-term care facility where many members live and work. Collaborating with established artists, members use storytelling, hip-hop and spoken word to challenge audiences to combat the injustice that breeds violence in our cities.
OPEN DOORS returns to the NYC neighborhoods where members grew up to inform young people about rarely considered consequences of gun violence, and to encourage them to become positive change makers.
Read our interview with two of the reality poets, Tito and Jay here: https://pen.org/works-of-justice-reality-poets/
Award-winning journalist Kyle Swenson joins us to discuss Good Kids, Bad City, his first book about the true story of the longest wrongful imprisonment in the United States to end in exoneration, and a critical social and political history of Cleveland, the city that convicted them. In an immersive exploration of race in America, Swenson investigates this disgraceful miscarriage of justice, and how the corruption and decay of Cleveland led to their wrongful imprisonment.
Kyle Swenson is a reporter with The Washington Post‘s Morning Mix team. Prior to joining The Post in 2017, he covered South Florida for the New Times Broward-Palm Beach. His reporting on the criminal justice system and features have won several national awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2015 he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The New Republic, and Longreads. A graduate of Kenyon College, he lives in Washington, D.C. Good Kids, Bad City is his first book.
Read our interview with Kyle Swenson at: https://pen.org/works-of-justice-kyle-swenson-interview/
Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe hosts events throughout the year. Special thanks to Rosie Clarke who helped envision the first four events in this series and inspire this channel. See more about Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe at: https://www.housingworks.org/
2014 EV Fellow and Casting Director for the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. Victor Vazquez discusses diversity, talks about taking the mic, our responsibility to awe, The Lion King, and BDSM with Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher.
**
Victor Vazquez serves as Casting Director/Line Producer and member of the artistic team at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. He's worked at Center Theatre Group, The Pasadena Playhouse, Cornerstone Theatre Company, and DAQRI. A recipient of fellowships from PEN America and LAMBDA Literary as an Emerging LGBT Writer, he is a master’s candidate at the University of Oxford and holds two bachelor’s degrees from UC Irvine. Victor is the son of Mexican immigrants and Spanish is his native language. Originally from Los Angeles, he now lives in Washington, D.C.
Irene Suico Soriano might not be sure if she was a Fellow in 2000 or 2001 but she is sure of two things. One is that the road to publication is just as long as it needs to be and more importantly, that picking up hitchhikers in your community is a vital part of the journey. Listen to her tell Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher all about it. With guest appearances by Papu and Max.
**
A 2001 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow Irene Suico Soriano was born in Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines, in 1969. At eleven years of age, she and her mother immigrated to Los Angeles, California. Her childhood was spent soaking in the neighborhoods of pre-gentrified Downtown LA, East Hollywood, Rampart/Temple, Melrose, and the Wilshire/Vermont corridor. Her poems have appeared in Philippines Free Press; Solidarity Journal; LA Times; Flippin': Filipinos on America (Asian American Writers' Workshop); Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers (Aunt Lute); Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry (Rattapallax Press); and Disorient Journalzine, which published her chapbook Safehouses as part of their Emerging Writers Chapbook Series. Irene founded and coordinated the Southern California reading series, "Wrestling Tigers: Asian Pacific American Writers Speak" at the Japanese American National Museum and was literary curator for the Los Angeles Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture (FPAC). She was featured in the Los Angeles Times for her curatorial participation in the ground-breaking NEA-funded World Beyond Poetry Festival that featured over 100 poets from the diverse communities of LA, and co-produced, as part of the LA Enkanto Art Collective, the CD In Our Blood: Filipina/o American Poetry & Spoken Word from Los Angeles. Irene's first full-length collection of poems PRIMATES FROM AN ARCHIPELAGO was published by Rabbit Fool Press in 2017.
Award-winning author of TESTIFY, Dornsife Fellow, and 2018 EV mentor Douglas Manuel joins Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher in idyllic Long Beach to talk poetry, politics, and the cultural capital a PhD affords someone who can't stop dancing to the collective song.
**
Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and an MFA from Butler University where he was the Managing Editor of Booth a Journal. He is currently a Middleton and Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California where he is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Gold Line Press as well as one of the Managing Editors of Ricochet Editions. His poems are featured on Poetry Foundation's website and have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, The Los Angeles Review, Superstition Review, Rhino, North American Review, The Chattahoochee Review, New Orleans Review, Crab Creek Review, and elsewhere. His first full-length collection of poems, Testify (Red Hen Press, 2017), won the 2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for poetry. Find him at douglasmanuelpoetry.com
Listen to the 2018 Emerging Voices read their work for the last time together as current Fellows. Featuring introductions by mentors Lilliam Rivera, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Tananarive Due, Angela Morales, and Douglas Manuel.
Listen in as acclaimed voice-over actor and instructor, writer, and performer Dave Thomas talks Shakespeare, Dark Sith Lords, and the MacKenzie brothers. (And if you hang on until the end you'll learn how to use the cork from a wine bottle to improve your diction.)
** David Thomas has done voice-over commercial work for Gatorade, Coca-Cola, Southwestern Bell, Propel, Citizen Watches, and many more. He has also appeared as a regular guest star on FOX’s King of the Hill. He donates his voice work to the Emerging Voices Fellowship, the NAACP, and Freedom from Hunger. Visit Dave at hollywoodinhollywild.com
Founder of the Long Beach Literary Arts Center and 2015 Emerging Voices Fellow Nancy Lynée Woo talks about DIY lit scenes, the importance of creative spaces, and the power of showing up, while Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher drools over the size of Nancy's apartment.
**
Nancy Lynée Woo is an incorrigible optimist and the author of two chapbooks, BEARING THE JUICE OF IT ALL and RAMPANT. She teaches a poetry workshop called Surprise the Line and organizes not one but TWO Long Beach reading series, Off The Page, and Poetry on the Rocks with Mike Gravagno. Please support Nancy in all of her endeavors at patreon.com/fancifulnance
Listen to author (and Author Evening host), mentor, teacher, and editor Samantha Dunn rant about being a memoirist, a ghost, and an "enemy of the people" while Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher says "like" a lot.
** Samantha Dunn is the author of FAILING PARIS, a finalist for the PEN West Fiction Award in 2000, and the memoirs NOT BY ACCIDENT and FAITH IN CARLOS GOMEZ. She has ghostwritten several books and her writing has been anthologized in WOMEN ON THE EDGE, DANCING AT THE SHAME PROM, and in DRINKING DIARIES. Sam teaches creative writing for UCLA Extension Writers' Program and the Idyllwild Arts Center and is the Executive Editor for COAST magazine.
Poetry Master Class Instructor F. Douglas Brown reads us a poem, tells us what’s in a name, and asks us to consider skinheads, while Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher coughs a lot.
** Both a Cave Canem and a Kundiman fellow, F. Douglas Brown is the author of two poetry collections: ICON and ZERO TO THREE, and co-author of the chapbook BEGOTTEN. Doug is a DJ and father to three who also teaches English and African American Poetry at Loyola High School of Los Angeles.
Emerging Voices Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher answers the question, “Why a podcast?” and Prose Master Class Instructor Alex Espinoza talks workshop etiquette, cruising, and Lucha Libre.
**
Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in suburban Los Angeles. Author of the novel STILL WATER SAINTS and THE FIVE ACTS OF DIEGO LÉON, he received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Espinoza is also the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Arts at Cal State LA.
"Since when did love become a crime?” Chinese writer Liao Yiwu asks himself — and asks us — this question as he relates his recent conversations with detained Chinese poet Liu Xia. Over the past two months, Liao has released two audio recordings of his phone conversations with Liu Xia in an effort to push for her freedom.
Both essays were originally posted on ChinaChange.org.
Poets Martín Espada, Denice Frohman, Julio Marzán, Peggy Robles Alvarado, and Rich Villar demonstrate the power of poetry in galvanizing resistance in the wake of Hurricane María and discuss the urgent need to combine activism and art to counter the negligence of the Trump administration.
This panel explores some of the places where Spanish abuts other languages and how power relationships ebb and flow. How does translation affect these relationships? Can it restore a place of equality between a majority language and a minoritized language? And does it erase difference in the process? With Alicia Kopf, Judith Santopietro, Trifonia Melibea Obono, Rubén Ríos-Avila. Moderated by Mary Ann Newman.
Authors and activists raise their voices to uplift those of the imprisoned, whose writing represents resistance and triumph, and provides revelatory insight to the lives of the incarcerated. Experience the work of PEN Prison Writing award winners brought to life by Raquel Almazan, Julia Steele Allen, asha bandele, Donna Hylton, Mitchell S. Jackson, Liza Jessie Peterson, Alejo Rodriguez and Demian Vitanza.
Discover new voices in resistance literature and hear writers Sharon Bala, Marcos Aguinis, and Ayse Kulin share their stories of epic feats of persistence. Sharon Bala’s boatload of Sri Lankan refugees lands in Canada but instead of receiving sanctuary, they are imprisoned because of fears that their group includes terrorists; their quest for freedom moves to the courts. Aguinis shares an extraordinary story of resistance during the Spanish Inquisition. In Without a Country, Kulin’s characters flee Nazi Germany and find safe haven in Turkey. The authors discuss the common theme in their novels, the almost superhuman effort of individuals to persist in the face of danger and death, with Laurie Gwen Shapiro.
In his latest novel, Colm Tóibín draws on contemporary proponents of extreme violence — the Boston marathon bomber, ISIS, and a shocking ambush of Irish Protestants during the Troubles — to reimagine the story of ancient Greek murderers. Aminatta Forna’s Happiness similarly draws on the brutal modern wars in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and Iraq to illuminate a character’s evolving attitude toward individuals traumatized by violence. These two outstanding lyrical authors of fiction talk to John Freeman about how they approach violence in their work.
No matter their origin, writers across the globe encapsulate the spirit of resistance by giving a voice to the oppressed. In an evening of solidarity and community, writers from seven countries share their stories of pain, rage, and suffering while living under oppressive regimes. Hear the voices of the unheard and celebrate these moments of resistance. Moderated by Chip Rolley.
As courts pave the way for the introduction of same sex marriage rights in Taiwan, the novels of Qiu Miaojin, who killed herself at age 26, open a door to a time of great change in Taiwanese culture, from the social and political vilification of LGBTQ people there to the underground explosion of gender and LGBTQ diversity. Bonnie Huie, translator of Qiu’s Notes of a Crocodile, and Ari Larissa Heinrich, translator of her Last Words from Montmartre, talk to poet and novelist Eileen Myles about an artist who has become a countercultural icon and whose work has had a lasting impact on literature and LGBTQ identity in Taiwan.
Plays have an aliveness and immediacy of impact that allow them to palpably reimagine and, thus, shape reality. In many locations, theater has become a site of resistance and transformation. The dearth of translated plays in this country, therefore, amounts to occluding an important aspect of the global ethical sociopolitical conversation. What are we missing? Michael Eskin, Agnes Walde, Jeremy Tiang, and Martin Puchnerspeak about the challenges of translating work from the Chinese-speaking world.
A character in its own right, Havana lies central to the work and life of Leonardo Padura, author of the celebrated detective series, the “Havana Quartet”. As one of Cuba’s best-known authors, Padura chronicles the country from the Fidel Castro era to its present day quasi-capitalism with a dynamic host of characters that includes Leon Trotsky and Ernest Hemingway. He speaks with Mark Kurlansky in this festival event.
PEN America and Tongue & Groove present a reading by the 2018 Emerging Voices Fellows at The Hotel Cafe.
Join us for a night of readings and drinks with musical guest Elephants with Guns.
Featuring: Jubi Arriola-Headley Ron Dowell Natalie Mislang Mann Angela M. Sanchez Francisco Uribe
Since the Euromaidan demonstrations in 2013, Ukraine has been split between pro-European Union and pro-Russian sentiment and — in the four years of hostilities since Russia annexed Crimea and occupied parts of the Donbass region of Ukraine — 10,000 people have died and 1.7 million have been displaced. Writers represent the very essence of resistance, engaging with the culture of war and how it affects a country and its people. Poets Serhiy Zhadan of Eastern Ukraine, Demyan Kudryavtsev of Russia, and Andrei Khadanovich of Belarus discuss life, literature, and the role of writers during times of conflict.
In 1935 Sinclair Lewis predicted the rise of an American populist and fascist state in his dystopian satire, It Can’t Happen Here. Is Lewis’s novel coming true, or will democracy prevail? Authors Masha Gessen, Nancy MacLean, Max Boot, and New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma consider this question and how we can further strengthen democratic institutions. Moderated by Chip Rolley.
Courageous, award-winning practitioners discuss how they work on the sharp edge of politically engaged theater in Russia, Tunisia, and Belarus while navigating constant threats of censorship and political repression. With Varvara Faer of Moscow’s Teatr.doc, Natalia Kaliada of Belarus Free Theatre, and Tunisian playwright Meriam Bousselmi. Moderated by Jessica Litwak of The H.E.A.T. Collective and Theatre Without Borders.
“To translate is to walk down numerous scary corridors, to grope in the dark,” writes Jhumpa Lahiri in her introduction to her latest translation of Domenico Starnone, his layered and playfully inventive novel, Trick. Lahiri, one of America’s finest writers, exiled herself to the language of Italian and cut her translator’s teeth on Starnone’s linguistically and stylistically challenging novels. They discuss the work that has made him one of Italy’s finest writers and the rewards that come with literature’s journey to a new language. Moderated by Michael Reynolds.
Transitions can be powerful or they can be disconcerting, delirious or even dangerous. Whether they are across national borders, across cultures, or across sexual identities, reconciling the old and the new can be accompanied by pain or by joy, or lead to a new awareness and identity. In her debut novel Freshwater Akwaeke Emezi explores how the West and traditional Igbo culture can inform identity. Kanchana Ugbabe, an Indian author who has found refuge from the violence in her hometown in Nigeria, writes of the dual vision of the insider and outsider. And in Disoriental, filmmaker and author Négar Djavadi, who fled from Iran to France with her family at age 11, writes of the need to “disintegrate” before you can integrate into a new culture. Powerful fiction and memoir give us insights into the threshold spaces of culture and identity these women occupy.
In their efforts to resist the Trump Administration’s attacks on free expression and individual rights, Americans have mobilized on an unprecedented scale. But how effective have these efforts been? In a discussion moderated by Suzanne Nossel, Masha Gessen, journalist, and Patrisse Cullors, artist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, discuss the successes and failures of the resistance and how we move forward with more effectiveness. With Dale Ho.
With the upcoming 2018 election, how can we ensure the voices of American citizens are being heard at the polls? Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman and historian Carol Anderson map the evidence of systematic and growing efforts to suppress voters rights and provide insight on activist solutions and responses. Moderated by Oliver Laughland.
How can writers help bring about a new politics more responsive to the growing movements for living wages, universal healthcare, and racial justice? Mark Nowak of the Worker Writers School and Vijay Prashad of LeftWord Books join Anjali Kamat in conversation about writers working at the intersection of economic inequality, creativity, and power. Featuring poetry from the Worker Writers.
From a single sticky note at a subway stop to the largest one-day protest in U.S. history to mark Trump’s inauguration, expressions of public protest can take many forms, with art playing a crucial role. Artists Amy Khoshbin and Tania Bruguera, along with writer A.M. Homes, explore opportunities for creativity in activism, and detail their work, which shares themes of cultural and familial identity, immigration, and human fortitude under extreme duress. They delve into the collaborative project, Word on the Street, curated by Khoshbin, and investigate the symbiotic relationship between art and social change. Moderated by Carmen Hermo Assistant Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.
We are living through one of the most divisive periods in American history, with hate-filled rhetoric fueling disagreements on a wide range of issues—from LGBTQ rights to immigration policy and more. How do we begin to repair the world around us and move toward collective, positive change? CNN commentator Sally Kohn, who investigates the roots and lasting effects of political, cultural, and personal hatred in a new book, spoke with PEN America in a frank and inspiring conversation on the opposite of hate.
The PEN World series showcases the important work of the more than 140 centers that form PEN International. In this series, PEN America interviews the leaders of different PEN centers from the global network to offer a window into the literary accomplishments and free expression challenges of their respective countries. This month, Polina Kovaleva, Free Expression Manager for Eurasia at PEN America spoke with Adam Pomorski, President of the Polish PEN Center. PEN America stands in solidarity with the Polish PEN Center in their protest against a law criminalizing language that labels Poland as complicit in the Holocaust. The audio is in Russian, English translation at https://pen.org/polish-pen-center-reckoning-history-honoring-literature/
Panelists included Jelani Cobb, author and New Yorker staff writer; Michelle Goldberg, author and Slate columnist; and Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America. The program was moderated by Stig Abell, editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement. This panel took place at the 2017 Brooklyn Book Festival.
Polina Kovaleva, PEN America's manager of Free Expression Programs – Eurasia, speaks with Andrey Kurkov from the Ukrainian PEN Center.
In the first part of the show, Zlatko Dizdarevic, one of the editors of Oslobodenje newspaper, the only newspaper which continued to publish during the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, talks about the war in Sarajevo with Terry Gross. The second part is the news of PEN's event, which had taken place the night before when a group of writers gathered for a special reading to benefit writers in Bosnia. It is followed by readings at the event, starting with Arthur Miller, followed by Wendy Wasserstein and Don DeLillo.
At the time of this interview, it had been more than six years since the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie. Rushdie lived in hiding but continued to write and to make a few semi-public appearances. His book, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, published in 1990, was a fairy tale written for his son. His 1995 book East, West is a collection of stories about the line that divides East and West, migration, exile, and the notion of home.
In a radio series called New Southerners, writer Kaye Gibbons answers questions about her award-winning book Ellen Foster and follow-up books, how new writers from the South talk about race, building characters that ring true to regional areas, and how it feels to be compared to historic Southern writers. Please contact Princeton University's Rare Book and Special Collections department for access.
In an interview with NPR's Fresh Air, Christine Serfaty, wife of imprisoned Moroccan writer Abraham Serfaty, discusses her acceptance of the 1991 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on behalf of her imprisoned husband. She answers questions about meeting and hiding him at the beginning of his exile and talks of how she remains hopeful that he will be released and that receiving this award will shed some light on the injustice of his prison sentence. PEN America Freedom to Write Co-Chair Faith Sale is also present for the interview.
The record is a radio program created by WNYC about the Mexican poet, Octavio Paz, in which he reads some of his poems aloud.
Playwright, The New York Times contributor, and Advisor to the M Word Wajahat Ali on being a Muslim-American writer and why it's important for Muslim Americans to tell their own stories.
Playwright, The New York Times contributor, and Advisor to the M Word Wajahat Ali discusses the strangest questions he is asked as a Muslim American.
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Billy Cancel. Read the full text of "from in the weeds my buzzer shot" at pen.org/two-poems-billy-cancel
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Billy Cancel. Read the full text of "from paint hungry dogleg to day of judgment" at https://pen.org/two-poems-billy-cancel/
Karen Kennerly and Arthor Helton discuss the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 a.k.a. McCarran-Walter Act. Cases of authors and poets affected by it, including Ángel Rama, Mahmoud Darwish, Dennis Brutus, and Pablo Neruda, are mentioned.
Edmund Keeley, the new president of the PEN America, talks about PEN America as well as his own works and literary efforts.
This radio program covers students' reactions to a PEN event with Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe.
Presented as a form of protest, the evening is dedicated to the works of "forbidden writers" who have been barring foreigners from the United States based upon ideological beliefs and writings. John Irving reads Gabriel García Márquez, Patricia Derian illuminates Section 28, otherwise known as the Mccarran-Walter Act, Arthur Miller reads from the examination and testimony of Ángel Rama, William Styron reads a prepared statement about Julio Cortázar, and Susan Sontag reads from Carlos Fuentes' Terra Nostra and Pablo Neruda.
This recording comprises the third, fourth and fifth readings at St. Peter's Church during the 48th PEN International Congress. Each of the speaker's readings address some aspect of the central theme: the writer's imagination, and the imagination of the state Valenzuela reads from her book "The Lizard's Tail". Grusa reads an excerpt from "The Questionnaire"The fourth of the Midday Reading Series. . Aksyonov reads the a page of his book "The Burn"; and Ozick reads the rest of the passage. Kis reads a part of his novel "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich". Konrad reads from an unidentified work of his, after which Ivan Sanders (Konrad's translator) reads from the book "The Loser". The fifth and last of the Midday Reading Series events: Atwood reads from "The Handmaid's Tale," Munro reads from her short story "The Progress of Love" and Davies reads from "What's Bred in the Bone."
Frederic Morton discusses the struggles of being a writer facing issues like, to use his phrase, "literary paranoia". Morton further details the challenges in the process of publishing a book.
This is the 9th time, or 18th year, the Roger Klein / Publisher Citation has been awarded; this iteration is held at the Yale Club. This event is held every 2 years. The Publisher Citation is awarded to "a publisher whose career has demonstrated continuous and distinctive service to international letters, to the freedom and dignity of writers, and to free the transmission of the printed word across barriers of poverty, ignorance, and censorship." This year the Publisher Citation is awarded to Barney Rosset, owner of Grove Press. Rembar and Seaver give speeches about working with Rosset. Wallace gives opening remarks about the Roger Klein award, which is given to Smith.
Nancy Morejón fearlessly takes on ethnicity, gender, history, politics, Afro-Cuban identity, and the collision of cultures in the “New World” with her poetry. This reading and meet-the-poet talk with one of the first Cuban women to celebrate blackness in poetry will be set against the backdrop of the Bronx Museum’s Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje exhibition, a survey of Cuban artists both on the island and abroad grappling with issues of identity, community, and the urban experience.
Speakers share challenges they faced in their job, their professional trajectories, and any controversial elements of their work. Panelists include, in part, book publisher Phillip Lee, children's book author Robie Harris, and illustrator Susan Kulkin.
Trans woman and political activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, trans author and boxer Thomas Page McBee, poets Eileen Myles and Saeed Jones, and founder/executive director of Women in Media and News Jennifer Pozner discuss the narratives of transgender issues found - or not seen - in the media.
A lively discussion about female sexual pleasure and societal taboos surrounding sexually empowered women. With Sarah Barmak (Closer: Notes from the Orgasmic Frontier of Female Sexuality), Jill Filipovic (The H Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness), Mona Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution), and Sabrina Jones (Our Lady of Birth Control, a graphic novel about the life of Margaret Sanger).Moderated by Amy Gall.
A discussion on portraying women’s sexuality in fiction with novelists Yewande Omotoso (South Africa), Malin Persson Giolito (Sweden), Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria), and Minae Mizumura (Japan).
Nancy Morejón fearlessly takes on ethnicity, gender, history, politics, Afro-Cuban identity, and the collision of cultures in the “New World” with her poetry. This reading and meet-the-poet talk with one of the first Cuban women to celebrate blackness in poetry will be set against the backdrop of the Bronx Museum’s Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje exhibition, a survey of Cuban artists both on the island and abroad grappling with issues of identity, community, and the urban experience.
Celebrating the legacy of Vladimir Nabokov at the 20th Century Masters Tribute Series, James Mason open the PEN America event by reading the iconic opening lines of Lolita.
AI Weiwei On Art and Culture after Tiananmen Square at the PEN America event "Voices from China", October 5, 1989
Now more than ever, it’s time to hear from the immigrants whose stories are contemporary epics from some of the finest and bravest individuals in America’s collective dream. Dreamers share their stories with original pieces created under the guidance of Álvaro Enrigue. In partnership with the CUNY Service Corps.
The always-popular Translation Slam, hosted by Michael Moore with Noemi Jaffe, Greg Pardlo, Hiromi Ito, Keith Vincent, Janine Beichman, and Katrina Dodson. What happens when a poem migrates into another language, not just once but twice? Find out at this Festival favorite, where poets, translators, and audience members square off in a spirited exchange over meaning, choice, and freedom.
At PEN America's 20th Century Master's Tribute to James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe reflects on meeting Baldwin in the 1960's.
Hilton Als explores his relationship with James Baldwin through the lens of memory at PEN America's 20th Century Master's Tribute.
Nikki Giovanni reads "Making James Baldwin" at PEN America's 20th Century Master's Tribute.
Carl Hancock Rux Reads James Baldwin at PEN America's Twentieth Century Master's Tribute event in 2001.
At this PEN America event, "Orwell Now," Christopher Hitchens offers a critical analysis of Orwell's works from his own intellectual perspective.
In 2002, PEN—in collaboration with The Academy of American Poets, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, QBR: The Black Book Reivew, and The New York Times—sponsored a Twentieth-Century Masters Tribute to Langston Hughes, excerpts of which appear in PEN America 3: Tribes. The event includes readings (mostly poetry), performing music and play.
Seeking to build public understanding of the implications of the order, PEN, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild sponsored a forum entitled "Controlling History? Presidential Historians Discuss the Craft of Biography and the New Limits on Archival Access" on April 10, 2002 at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
This reading event was held to raise public awareness to the political situation of Burma and its violation of human rights. It commemorates the tenth anniversary of the pro-democracy uprising in Burma.
The event is a celebration of the winner of PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom To Write Award in 1992, the Haitian journalist and radio correspondent, Jean Mario Paul.
Ariel Dorfman, Jorge del Rio (?), Rafael Campo, Martín Espada, John Felstiner, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Galway Kinnelltalk about the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Some readings are also included.
Panel discussion at the PEN World Voices Festival 2008. Cosponsored by the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy
In an age when what goes on in the bedroom has made it out onto the street, five female writers explore the ways in which sex has become a stronger presence than ever in literature, how they decide what to reveal and how to reveal it, and just how much of their own personal sexuality finds its way into their work.
Muriel Barbery, the author of the award-winning international best-seller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a novel that The Washington Post called "exceptionally winning." Barbery joined by the New Yorker magazine's Adam Gopnik for a discussion about the mysteries of childhood, the novel as philosophical fable, and why one Parisian psychotherapist is prescribing Muriel's novel to her patients.
This panel discussion was formed by the PEN American Center Children’s Committee, featuring five children’s writers and illustrators to answer the question: What do you struggle for in your writing and in your art?
“The New Intolerance” was a four-part series of panel discussions built as a joint venture between the Columbia School for the Arts: Writing Division and the PEN American Center. On February 4th 1998, the first installment of the series opens with a conversation regarding intolerance in "Politics." The evening’s panel of authors and journalists open this series on politics with the question: Is intolerance on the rise or decreasing in politics or the political scene? And are we seeing, aside from foreign policy, intolerance starting to play a larger or lesser role with how Americans look at their government?
“The New Intolerance” was a four-part series of panel discussions built as a joint venture between the Columbia School for the Arts: Writing Division and the PEN American Center. On February 11th 1998, the second installment of the series opens with a conversation regarding intolerance in/of "Sex." The evening’s panel of writers discusses their standards and ideals when it comes to sex being talked about both in the public and in their work. Personal reflections move into professional conversations about - How do we even talk about sex in this day and age when it has so many different faces available?
“The New Intolerance” was a four-part series of panel discussions built as a joint venture between the Columbia School for the Arts: Writing Division and the PEN American Center. On February 18th 1998, the third installment of the series opens with a conversation regarding intolerance in "Race." The panel of writers and academics look at the historic transitions of race and how Americans (in particular) look at race transcendence, color blindness, and how what continues to hold some back when it is not a question of merit but of rather race and/or ethnicity.
“The New Intolerance” was a four-part series of panel discussions built as a joint venture between the Columbia School for the Arts: Writing Division and the PEN American Center. On February 25th 1998, a panel of five - made up of artists, writers and a human rights lawyer, opens the final installment of the series with a conversation regarding intolerance in "the Arts," through personal reflections and discuss who’s right (if any) it is to censor art and literature, and how the cultural climate changes the rules throughout history.
"Orwell Now" is an evening of discussion and rebuttal by writer Christopher Hitchens and other George Orwell scholars for the debut of John Reed's Animal Farm parody follow-up novel "Snowball's Chance." Mr. Hitchens is scheduled to appear at Cooper Union with Simon Schama, James Miller and the New Yorker writer Bill Buford for ''Orwell Now,'' a symposium presented by the PEN American Center, all were prepared to discuss their view of Orwell and Orwell's politics. Mr. Hitchens will also discuss his new book "Why Orwell Matters."
Hosted by Leonard Lopate, this is the second of a series of four panel discussions with a group of writers on one specific topic. This panel is a discussion with three foreign correspondents that as well as being journalists they have also written nonfiction books which have (or tried to) bring foreign issues to the forefront of the American conscience.
'John Steinbeck: A 20th-Century Masters Tribute is a celebration in words, images and music, including personal reflections, dramatic readings and slide projections. The featured participants are the playwright Arthur Miller, the writer and journalist Studs Terkel, the novelists Dorothy Allison and William Kennedy and the writers and Paris Review co-founders George Plimpton and Peter Matthiessen.
PEN presents 3 awards, fellowships, and prizes, with the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $150,000 in 2000 to some of the most gifted writers, editors, and translators working today.
This is afternoon discussion is part of a series of talks at Joe's Pubs called "Three at Three". This day's discussion is a conversation with four playwrights regarding the landscape of play development.
The PEN American series “The Writer, The Work,” was a series of programming started by Susan Sontag, in which she would have a one-on-one conversation with a featured writer. The following conversation is with Hungarian writer Péter Nādas, regarding his process. Recording includes the conversation, readings, and Q & A from the evening.
The PEN American series “The Writer, The Work,” was a series of programming started by Susan Sontag, in which she would have a one-on-one conversation with a featured writer. Due to her being out of town for the planned conversation with writer W.G. Sebald, she asked literary critic James Wood to step in for her. The following conversation is about Sebald’s book “The Emigrants” and the process of writing memory/fabricating memory. Recording includes the conversation, readings, and Q & A from the evening.
A Celebration of Yukio Mishima – A 20th Century Masters Tribute: This tribute event was sponsored by PEN American Center and Lincoln Center and included photographs and a presentation by Eikoh Hosoe, dramatizations of Mishima’s novels from Paul Schrader’s film “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters,” and presentations by Mishima’s translator John Nathan, writers Jay McInerney, William Vollmann and Hortense Calisher, and opera director Chen Shi-Zheng.
A Celebration of James Baldwin – A 20th Century Masters Tribute: an event sponsored by the writers group PEN American Center, in collaboration with the New Yorker magazine and the Schomburg Center, and included presentations by novelists Chinua Achebe, Russell Banks and John Edgar Wideman, critic Hilton Als, poet Amiri Baraka, scholar Eleanor Traylor, and biographers Arnold Rampersad and David Leeming, as well as readings by poet and performer Carl Hancock Rux, photographs by Sedat Pakay, and an archival recording of James Baldwin singing “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.”
PEN Women’s Literary Workshop, started by Ilsa Gilbert 24 years ago at the request of PEN America, is a peer group that provides an opportunity for women writers who are members of PEN to share their work, be it poetry or prose. This is a recording from a 1999 meeting.
Panel discussion at Martin E. Segal Center, at the PEN World Voices Festival 2008. The line between memoir and fiction has become ever more blurred in recent years as authors increasingly borrow elements from each. But what goes into an author’s decision about what to reveal and what to withhold, when to look within and when to set stories in broader contexts?
To mark the publication by Schocken Books of a new translation of "The Castle," based on the restored text, PEN -- a fellowship of writers dedicated to defending free expression and advancing the cause of literature -- sponsored an evening of tribute, reflection, and re-examination of the work of Franz Kafka. (March 26, 1998)
This is the second event in a program called “Beyond Margins”, developed between the PEN American Center's Open Book Committee and the New School's Writers Program. At this event member's of the book industry (authors, editors, publisher's) come together for a panel discussion to talk about (and as) writers of color. Topics include: Writers of color: Do you need to have thematic content? What are the challenges for writers and editors of color? Who are the target audiences, and how do you build audience relationships? Also discussed by the panel: Getting published, marketing & distribution - specifically for writers of color.
PEN presents 21 awards, fellowships, and prizes, with the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $150,000 in 2004 to some of the most gifted writers, editors, and translators working today.
This panel discussion finds contemporary writers of Young Adult & Children's fiction talking about what drives them to write for young readers, what do they try and convey when they start a book and how do you convey the Human Condition for children, pre-teens and teenagers.
PEN presents 12 awards, fellowships, and prizes, with the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $150,000 in 2003 to some of the most gifted writers, editors, and translators working today.
At the beginning of 2003 Cuba was on the cusp of strengthening intellectual ties with the United States, however by the end of March/beginning of April an unexpected and extreme crackdown on dissidents by Castro's government led to a marked detrition of Cuba's relationship with the US. This evening panel discussion they look at the situation between the US and Cuba as they ask: What happened? Why did it happen? And where are we today?
This asset is part of the PEN Forums Series, called 20th Century Legacies. Hosted by Bradford Morrow - writers Jamacia Kincaid and William H. Gass pay tribute to Gertrude Stein and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Hosted by PEN America, at the New School - this evening is a play on the "Book Club" with four authors discussing the recent releases of Hanif Kureishi's "Intimacy" and Sue Miller's "While I Was Gone".
This is an interview with James Baldwin by Frank Schatz regarding John Brown. Mr. Baldwin furthers the discussion to the legacy of slavery, a nation in perpetual decline, and the American tendency to ‘destroy history.'
This is the third of a four part series called: Writers in Exile, in which American writer Paul Berman has a conversation with exiled Egyptian writer André Aciman, about his work, what it means to live in exile, and the process of making work about your homeland that you are not allowed to be near.
This evening is a panel discussion in which six writers, publishers and editors talk about the traditional boundaries between fact and fiction, which has become permeable, with factual narratives borrowing techniques from fiction.
In 2000, PEN sponsored a Twentieth-Century Masters Tribute to Marcel Proust. The evening was a mixture of music, translation, read essays and reflections regarding the influential writer and his works. Directed by Tom Palumbo, produced by Patricia Bosworth and Tom Palumbo.
Panel discussion at World Voices Festival 2008: Writers in many countries have come under threat for perceived insults to religious traditions, and some countries–England most recently–have tried to criminalize religious defamation. But the global repercussions of a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed internationalized the debate over free speech and respect for religious beliefs. Writers from several countries discuss the shifting and increasingly perilous terrain surrounding art and religion.
The Politics of Translation is a panel discussion presented by PEN and the Department of Comparative Literature at NYU. The talks were reproduced in their entirety in Metamorphoses. (September 16, 2003)
Hosted by the PEN America Freedom to Write Committee - Exiled writer and poet Taslima Nasrin, whose novels with feminist views and severe criticism of religion, gives a press conference on living in exile, during her first visit to New York. She is supported by writer Meredith Tax and publisher George Braziller, and speaks of standing behind her writings and beliefs despite the fatwa placed on her life.
On November 15, 1995 - Chinese Writer & Activist Wei Jingshen was convicted in Beijing of sedition and sentenced to 14 years in prison. A month later on December 15, 1995 a press conference was hosted by PEN Writers' Group and the organization: Human Rights in China - where in the imprisoned writer's sister Wei Shan-Shan spoke on her brothers behalf.
In a year of anniversaries recalling key moments in the last century's complicated romance with revolution (outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, suppression of the Hungarian uprising, Spain's dramatic moment of transition to democracy, and the birth of Solidarity), activist intellectuals reflect on the current status of our centuries-old faith in revolution and what its future may be.
Presented in collaboration with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York's Center for Humanities. A panel discussion on the politics, spin, and history of White House memoirs.
In 1999 the PEN Forums Committee and the New School Graduate Writing Program co-sponsored a centenary celebration of Jorge Luis Borges.
This evening was a tribute to Samuel Beckett, with readings and dramatic stagings of many of his pieces from those who both knew him personally and knew him through his work. The event was reprinted in Silences.
This event honors Vladimir Nabokov with presentations by distinguished authors on his life and work. Michael Scammell talks about his experiences as Nabokov’s translator, Stacy Schiff discusses the controversiality of "Lolita," Alfred Appel Jr. conveys Nabokov’s sense of humor, and Joyce Carol Oates reads from "Signs and Symbols," amongst other great performances. Dmitri Nabokov, the author's son, concludes the event.
This event honors Virginia Woolf, and is the third in the series A Twentieth-Century Masters Tribute. Distinguished authors and actors read from Woolf's work and discuss her influence on literature. Michael Cunningham, author of "The Hours," shares a humorous story about his "relationship to Woolf, and to Mrs. Dalloway in particular." Mary Gordon talks about The Waves, what she calls Woolf's "most difficult book." Elaine Showalter discusses the far-reaching influence of "A Room of One's Own," and Zoe Caldwell reads excerpts from Woolf's diaries, amongst other great performances.
This event honors renowned writer Italo Calvino. The author’s daughter, Giovanna Calvino, speaks about her father and introduces the evening's participants. Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, and Salman Rushdie, who were close friends of Calvino, reflect on the author and his writing. Interspersed with these distinguished writers, actors Katherine Borowitz, Wallace Shawn, John Hilner and Maria Tucci read excerpts from Calvino’s work.
This is the 9th annual reading and reception of the PEN Women’s Literary Workshop moderated by it’s founder, Ilsa Gilbert. Ten members of the committee read excerpts from their work, which are drawn from short stories, novels, poetry, biography and memoir.
Susan Sontag introduces what she calls “the sixth of an irregular and ongoing series of meetings with…writers I like a lot.” Robert Boyers then leads a conversation with author Maureen Howard concerning her literary style and influences, as well as her novel "Lover’s Almanac".
In celebration of Artaud's 121st birthday, the PEN America Archives presents the NSFW of Wayne Koestenbaum reading "Artaud le Momo" from the PEN World Voices event, Erotic and Forbidden.
Come out to the Union Square Greenmarket and hear incredible poets read! With participants from the Worker Writers School in Kingston, participants from the PEN America-Worker Writers School, and their instructor, Mark Nowak.
Allen Ginsberg formulates the basic principles of the Modern/Post-Modern/Beat/Open-Form poetics from those who influenced him most in the ars-poetica piece "Mind Writing Slogans"
Robert Creeley reads from his first book published with New Directions, Hello at "A Tribute to New Directions and James Laughlin", 1992.
Colson Whitehead reads from Jose Saramago's "Blindness" at the PEN America event "State of Emergency: Readings Against Torture, Arbitrary Detention and Extraordinary Rendition" in 2005
Tom Wolfe reads a generally unpopular segment from his book Bonfire of the Vanities at the 1988 PEN America event "New York Writers on New York"
Sekou Sundiata and Charles Lynch discuss how early memories, adolescent anxieties and the denouement associated with the future of the city.
Writers Honor Moore, Erin Carmon, and Margo Jefferson discuss the ongoing legacy of second-wave feminism with writer, critic, and Jezebel founder Anna Holmes.
From the event "New Urban Voices" (1987), poets Sekou Sundiata, Judy D. Simmons, Sanra Maria Esteves, and Louis Reyes Rivera perform an impromptu, improvised polyphonic poem.
Using the prism of Shakespeare, we will consider the various ways his work has been used throughout the centuries to channel dissent or used as propaganda and how the arts allow for greater freedoms of speech in our societies in the UK and US today.
Pioneers in the fields of theater, music, finance and advertising discuss new methods of fighting inequality. With Valerie Graves, Rita Mae Brown, Giannina Braschi and Theresa Rebeck. Moderated by Amy Siskind.
Women writers, entrepreneurs, and artists explore the dramas of culinary history, tradition, and the future of food with vigor and nuance, with Mariana Enriquez, Alison Markin Powell, Chitrita Banerji and Sonya Kharas. Moderated by Rohan Kamicheril.
Chinese poet Duo Duo recounts his impressions on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 at the PEN America event "Literature and Human Rights in China"
Maurice Kenny reads at PEN America's International Writers for Peace Day (1985), commemorating the Massacre at Wounded Knee — written in 1973 during the American Indian Movement's Occupation at Pine Ridge Reservation.
On Monday November 1st, 1999, at 6:30 p.m., PEN American Center, together with the Asia Society and Columbia University's Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, welcomed the first organized literary delegation from Iran to the United States. The Iranian writers will inaugurated their visit with an event at the Asia Society, featuring an evening of readings and discussion with Mahmoud Dolatabadi, Djavad Mojabi, Shahriar Mandanipour and Mohammad Ali Sepanlou, four of Iran's most distinguished writers joined by Iranian scholars and prominent PEN members.
The earliest extant recording of Flannery O'Connor's essay "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" that we know of was made on October 28, 1960 for the Dorothy Lamar Blount Lecture Series at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
John Steinbeck reads some of his short stories including, "The Snake," "Johnny Bear," "We're holding our own", and excerpts from The Grapes of Wrath. Please contact Princeton University Rare Book and Special Collections for access.
This recording is a reading, by writer Amy Tan, of her 1996 essay "Required Reading & Other Dangerous Subjects" - originally printed in the Three Penny Review (No.67 - Autumn, 1996). The piece is commentary on her work becoming part of educational curriculum, and how by becoming “Required Reading” it was subjected to more literary criticism. Not just literary criticism as a female writer, but also an Asian American writer, a writer of “color,” and also a minority writer. The piece is a statement of how she strives to become an American Novelist – the sum of all her pieces.
From PEN America's first International Writers for Peace marathon reading in 1985, Richard Gilman reads from The Passionate War by Peter Wyden. April 26th, 2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica.
This is the fourth part of the fourth day of the World Translation Conference. Shih-Hsiang Chen presenting a piece titled: Re-Creation of the Chinese Image
This is the sixth part of the third day of the World Translation Conference. Raja Rao presenting a piece titled: On Translating from Sanskrit (Q&A Portion). This Q&A is followed by scholar Younghill Kang presenting a piece titled: The Flight of Dragon-Cloud in the Land of Morning Calm: The Poetry of Han Yong Woon (1879-1944).
This is the third part of the third day World Translation Conference. George Quasha presenting a piece titled: The New Aspects of Translation (Second half of presentation). Followed by Georege Reavy presenting a piece titled: Translation as an Experience (First Half of presentation).
This is the fourth part of the third day of the World Translation Conference. Ivan Morris presenting a piece titled: On Translating Genji (Second half of presentation) Followed by Raja Rao presenting a piece titled: On Translating from Sanskrit (First half of presentation)
This is the fifth part of the third day of the World Translation Conference. Raja Rao presenting a piece titled: On Translating from Sanskrit (Second half of presentation)
This is a Q&A with Israeli writer and journalist Amos Oz, taking his listeners, questioners and critics on an eloquent journey of a storyteller straddling a very precarious position of a self-proclaimed ""Dove"", living in Israel, while also changing, or relaligning genres. He further touches on the codified nature of anti-semitism in Scandinavia, and the nature of opposition inherent in absolutes.
In anticipation of the 2017 PEN World Voices Festival highlighting Power and Gender, please enjoy Aicha Lemsine briefly speaking about gender-specific censorship in Algeria and the role of democracy in combatting the human rights violations and violence against women.
Zadie Smith speaks about the tally of dead, white, male authors she references, as well as being politically identified as a post-colonial influence in the 2006 PEN World Voices event.
From this 2007 PEN World Voices event, Erotic and Forbidden/Sex and Danger, Edmund White speaks about writing gay fiction and many of the conceptions and misconceptions involved, along with a brief Q & A on how gay, male sex squares with the post-1981 world.
In anticipation of PEN America's 2017 PEN World Voices Festival, the archive would like to share Caroline Emcke speaking about reporting in Iraq from this 2007 PEN World Voices event, "Reporting in Iraq, Living with Terror: Mark Danner & Caroline Emcke".
In anticipation of PEN America's 2017 PEN World Voices Festival: Gender and Power, we would like to share this reading by Zeyar Lynn reading two poems at the 2013 PWV event "Burma: Bones Will Crow".
Notable cultural and literary figures, including Pablo Neruda, discuss the role of writers that enter into the public eye. How do these public personas affect the craft, idiosyncrasies, and creative impulse? A correlative question concerns the nature and consequence of the classics—why do we read them? Do they illuminate the spirit of man or did the authors take a stand against some conflict in the contemporary setting? What roles have technological advancement and mass media had in this regard of the public persona? Not all participants are accounted for.
Notable cultural and literary figures, including Pablo Neruda, discuss the role of writers that enter into the public eye. How do these public personas affect the craft, idiosyncrasies, and creative impulse? A correlative question concerns the nature and consequence of the classics—why do we read them? Do they illuminate the spirit of man or did the authors take a stand against some conflict in the contemporary setting? What roles have technological advancement and mass media had in this regard of the public persona? Not all participants are accounted for.
Authors coming from different cultural and political backgrounds give remarks on various themes and issues pertaining to the life of literature and writers around the world.
This press conference precedes the Opening Ceremony of the 1966 International PEN Congress in New York City. Administrative procedures and information is provided for the attending press, PEN America President Lewis Galantière provides thematic context (Role of the Writer in the Electronic Age, The Writer as Public Figure, New Literacy, Publishing Industry, etc.) as well as gratitude towards other PEN centers, members, organizations, and funders. David Carver, General Secretary of PEN International, reinforces PEN's greater mission worldwide and the functioning history and capacity of PEN Congresses. Carver goes on to express his disappointment on the recuse of several observers from the USSR. Arthur Miller speaks briefly and fields a couple of questions concerning Freedom of Speech. The recording abruptly ends.
The closing session announces that the 34th PEN International Congress was a success in its measure and effectiveness in bringing together such a wide range of voices and complexity of issues. The Director of Literature for UNESCO, Presidents of PEN Poland, Czechslovakia and others speak as well.
Authors coming from different cultural and political backgrounds give remarks on various themes and issues pertaining to the life of literature and writers around the world.
Francine Prose, Michael Cunningham, and Doon Arbus discuss how Diane Arbus’s precise use of language illuminates the perception of her pictures. The evening begins with a screening of A Slide Show and Talk by Diane Arbus, a 40-minute film compiled and edited by Neil Selkirk, Doon Arbus, and Adam Shott from an original recording of a 1970 slide presentation in which the artist speaks about photography, using her own work and other photographs, snapshots, and clippings from her collection. A reading from the book Diane Arbus: A Chronology follows.
Orhan Pamuk expounds on his process of developing his characters, specifically Faruk Darvinoglu from his book The White Castle.
Former PEN America President and Poet, Galway Kinnell extemporizes on the impact of the “nuclear end” has upon the craft of poetry at this 1984 PEN America panel on the Nuclear Threat, 1984
Distinguished Professor of history Blanche Cook speaks about the Freedom of Information at the PEN America event, "Federal Control of Information and the National Security State"
Amos Oz reads from his novella, The Crusades, at the 48th International PEN Congress that took place in 1986 in New York City.
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Jeff T. Johnson. Read the full text of "Last Poem #7" at pen.org/last-poems
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Jeff T. Johnson. Read the full text of "Last Poem" at https://pen.org/last-poems
Bárbara Jacobs makes a statement about the role of the writer in the web of the government from this 1990 PEN America event, "The Literary Arts of Mexico: The Writer and the Web".
As part of PEN America’s The M Word, playwright and NYT contributor Wajahat Ali talks with celebrated actor and activist George Takei. They discuss the lessons America has yet to learn from the violence committed against Japanese Americans during WWII and the importance of taking stock of history before plotting an inclusive path forward.
Katherine Dunn reads an excerpt from her novel, Geek Love, at the 1989 PEN America event "Where Rolls the Mighty Oregon: Pacific NW Writers
This is the 7th Presentation of the PEN Publishers Citation & The Roger Klein Award, with the following winners: Robert Gottlieb and Jonathan Galassi
This is a confrence hosted by PEN America with a panel of Authors who have all written about the Vietnam War (books covering both during and after). And the question is presented as "What is the central question when an author writes about Vietnam?" The panel discusses what it means to them to give their perspectives on Vietnam. Q&A after.
This is a confrence hosted by PEN America with a panel of Authors who have all written about the Vietnam War (books covering both during and after). And the question is presented as "What is the central question when an author writes about Vietnam?" The panel discusses what it means to them to give their perspectives on Vietnam. Q&A after.
This is a episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC. Hosted by Anne Fremantle, this episode is a conversation between the German writer Uwe Johnson and long time contributor at the New Yorker magazine: Brendan Gill. The piece is loosely titled "New York - New York", and is a conversation about both writers relationship with New York City.
This is a episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC. Hosted by Anne Fremantle, this episode is a conversation with the famed translator Gregory Rabassa and his former student and translator Ronald Christ regarding the question: Is the Translator a Traitor?
This is the first episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC. Hosted by Anne Fremantle, this episode is a conversation between the writers Hortense Calisher and Dwight Macdonald regarding the question: Is the multimedia benign or maleficent?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between the writers Emily Hahn and Norman Cousins with regards to the question: Do men and women approach ultimate reality differently?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between the writers Charles L. Mee Jr. and James Chase with regards to the question: Who runs the world? Who rules the world? And who ruins the world?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between Australian novelists Shirley Hazzard and Thomas Keneally regarding "The Australian novel of today."
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between the poets Muriel Rukeyser and Ernesto Cardenal, regarding the question: How and why should the Artist be committed?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between Francis Steegmuller and Dr. Lola Szladits regarding the role of the editor and the curator in the care of large bodies of literary papers and archives and in the question of the physical disposition of writers manuscripts.
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between Alice Denham and Amaury de Riencourt discussing the question: Whether sexual discrimination has helped or hindered humanity?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between Jill Robinson and John Lahn discussing the question: Whether one may (or should) hate one's parents?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between the historian Erik Barnouw and filmmaker Perter Davis regarding the question: Film censorship - is it getting better or worse?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between journalists Ted Morgan and Peter Shaffon regarding the topic of "Monsterous and Murderous Children."
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a talk by Professor Gerald Sykes on interdisciplinary studies, and the relationship between the interdisciplinary arts and sciences.
This is a radio show with focus on new or timely books. This episode highlights Anne Fremantle "A Primer of Linguistics".
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between the author Madeleine L'Engle and Dr. Barry Wood (Internist at Roosevelt Hospital) regarding the question: Can we face death?
This is an episode of P.E.N. Portraits on WNYC, hosted by Anne Fremantle. This episode is a conversation between authors Dr. Paul Horgan and Robin Prising on the topic: Diverse tongues that make up one people
Nearly a year to the date of Rodney King being beaten by the LAPD (and a few weeks prior to the Rodney King Protests), Cornel West speaks at the PEN America event "Writing in a Racialized Society".
This is a panel of notable Dance Critics talking about the role, function and craft of writing about and observing dance.
This is a currently unidentified, Q & A portion of an event that revolves around the book publishing and agents.
This is a dictation based off the Annual Meeting of 1971/72, charting the general highlights and specific initiatives that will take place for the next five years.
The PEN World series showcase the important work of the more than 140 centers that form PEN International. In this series, PEN America interviews the leaders of different PEN centers from the global network to offer a window into the literary accomplishments and free expression challenges of their respective countries. This month, we feature PEN Central Asia. PEN Central Asia has a regional importance, its members live in five different countries across the region. We spoke with the President of Central Asian PEN Dalmira Tilepbergenova and its member Marat Akhmedjanov. The podcast was recorded in Russian by Polina Kovaleva and translated to English by Rachel Caywood (find English translation on PEN America's website https://pen.org/?p=135284&preview=true)
Gary Indiana reads a letter crafted by William S Burroughs to Allen Ginsberg at the 1995 PEN America event "Literary Gossip and Romance".
This asset is difficult to decipher due to audio quality and the fact that it seems to begin after the event started. However, this may be an interview with William Pritchard talking about writing his biography of Rober Frost, along with another unknown individual speaking about the "art" of book reviewing and the state of literary criticism and letters.
In this clip from a longer interview, Van Jones discusses the role spirituality can play in nurturing the newest generation of activists.
Van Jones is a celebrated commentator, activist, and, as we find out in this interview, a practicing lawyer. In a wide-ranging conversation, Jones and playwright Wajahat Ali discuss the remains of American democracy and the difficult necessity of outreach, and attempt to plot a spiritual road forward.
The M Word is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges program.
New Members Event at the PEN Offices: the treasurer Kirkpatrick Sale and the president of PEN Norman Mailer make speeches about PEN's mission, fundraising, and the upcoming PEN Congress.
An event about censorship and chilling effects in publishing, journalism, and the media generally, from the government and corporate interests. Two of the participants are Herbert Mitgang and John F. Baker of Publishers Weekly.
At the Prose and Poetry Reading session of the 1986 PEN International Congress, Allen Ginsberg initiates his readers in the tradition of the great and ancient poets, such as Sappho, that came before him.
Madeleine L'Engle discusses the connections between art and fear, the power of myths, science and faith, and her career as a writer of "A Wrinkle in Time", among many other books.
Barbara Beasley Murphy at Jacksonville State University talks about the censorship of her book, No Place to Run, and also discusses how children's books should reflect the culture in which kids are growing up.
Wolf Biermann sings and plays his songs, including "Deutschland im Herbst", "Und als Wir ans Ufer kamen", "Die hab Ich satt", "Das Hölderlin-Lied", "Ich leb mein Leben, sagt Eva-Marie". In discussion, he explores how song, free expression and culture are related and necessarily important.
Polish journalist and poet, Ryszard Kapuściński, speaking at the 1986 PEN International Congress event “How Does the State Imagine?” on the power of imagination in manifesting state hegemony through the trifecta of culture, god and history—while the writer must maintain her role as “witness and to give testimony”.
Robert Giroux and Roger Strauss receive the PEN Publisher's Citation for 1981. Speakers include Karen Kennerly , Bernard Malamud, Donald Barthelme, and Susan Sontag.
This event is focused on government efforts to stop the flow of information sensitive to national security. Judith Miller asks each panelist to discuss one issue: Blanche Cook discusses the Freedom of Information Act; Cord Meyer, Jr. talks about the cases of CIA agents Philip Agee and Frank Snepp and about the recent prosecutions intended to stop former agents from publishing information; Charles Renfrew talks about legislation to protect the identity of intelligence agents; Robert Borosage talks about a new executive order from the Reagan Administration which governing intelligence activities, and Miller herself discusses polygraph tests and other efforts to stop the leaks of sensitive information. A spirited debate then ensues.
Susan Sontag and Grace Paley, along with many other friends and colleagues, pay tribute to Don Barthelme following his passing in 1989 .
A tribute to Arthur Miller on his 80th birthday. Anne Hollander opens the event by reading six letters from Miller's friends who could not make it to the event, including Vaclav Havel, Jane Alexander, Harold Pinter, Nadine Gordimer, and John Tillinger. Carlos Fuentes and Edward Albee pay tribute to Miller. Dianne Wiest and Sam Waterston read a scene from act four of "The Crucible". Margo Jefferson has a conversation with Miller about the writing and the first production of "The Crucible." John Guare talks about Miller's legacy for the American theater and shares his memory of watching "Death of a Salesman" with his father. David Mamet reads an excerpt from "Roughing It" by Mark Twain. Zoe Caldwell speaks about Miller, and then introduces him as guest of honor. Miller himself is the last speaker of the event.
A panel on estate planning, in which George Robert Mankoff explains the functions of archives versus libraries; David Groff, who is also the moderator, introduces Safe House, an organization that preserves works of writers facing life-threatening illnesses; Daniel Y. Mayer talks about project and planning that helps preserve art. Another speaker talks about health care plans. Joan Nestle talks about the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
What does it mean to be President of PEN America? How does writing and reading inform the intellectual and cultural value of a person, interaction, and an institution? Former President Richard Howard and incoming president, Anne Hollander, discuss the history and mission of the organization.
This is the second PEN Benefit for Writers and Editors with AIDS. Special mention is made of Gregory Kolovakos, one of the founders of the event, who had passed away. Years prior he suggested that PEN set up an emergency grant fund for writers and editors with AIDS. Various acts perform throughout the event including Thought Music, along with a reading by Garrison Keillor. Ned Rorem and Robert Osborne perform eight songs, written by Rorem, based on poems by Walt Whitman. Alan Ginsberg and Philip Glass perform a portion of "Hydrogen Jukebox."
This event is the first in a new series in which writers are invited to talk about major issues of the day. Mary Gordon and Robert Stone take on sexual harassment, in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings. While the two authors fundamentally agree on the toxic nature of sexual harassment, they disagree quite sharply on how it should be handled—which makes for a often-heated debate. Gordon and Stone both recount instances of sexual harassment in their own lives and discuss such matters as the culture of entitlement, whether the idea of a "common civility" can help, and the long history, in literature and life, of women not being listened to and believed, from Cassandra all the way up to Anita Hill.
This event focuses on Sulfur, a poetry magazine. The founder, Clayton Eshleman, gives an introduction and reads a piece. Contributors to the magazine—including Rachel Blau DuPlessis, John Yau, Eliot Weinberger, and Charles Bernstein—read their work and discuss writing for a non-profit literary publication. First twenty minutes of the recording are very poor quality.
This event focuses on the literary magazine BOMB, a publication in which conversations between artists, in the form of interviews, are featured. One of BOMB's editors, Betsy Sussler, is the key speaker and moderator of the event. Panelists, including Patrick McGrath, Craig Gholson, Lynne Tillman, and Gary Indiana, read excerpts from their work that have been published in the magazine.
This is the seventh in a series of events on the publishing industry called The Book Business in the 80's: Will This Be Published or Privish, revolving around how and when and if to promote a book and the effects of a book that has been privished. There are a number of individuals who attend and speak at this event, but are currently unknown.
"Does the suppression of a book reflect the suppression of a people?” The question, in response to lawsuits brought against Viking Press for the publication of "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," is answered by novelist Peter Mattessien, attorney Martin Garbus, and Oren Lyons, an Iroquois Faithkeeper.
PEN America memorializes the writer and former PEN President Joy Chute with remembrances from Susan Sontag, Karen Kennerly, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, and Allen Ginsberg, among others.
Are there better ways to conduct the relationships between authors and publishing houses? Is the transference of power equal and equitable? What areas of the publishing process are in need of re-consideration, re-evaluation and repair? These questions and many more are addressed by notable figures in the world of publishing. Panelists include Jerome Charyn, Elizabeth Hardwick, Andre Schiffrin, Robert Lescher, and E.L. Doctorow.
In the last event in the four-part series on death with Anne Fremantle, the physician Lewis Thomas discusses death from a physiological standpoint.
In this third event in the four-part series on death with Anne Fremantle, Catholic bishop Paul Moore and Arthur Cohen, a scholar of Judaism, discuss the approaches the two different faiths take towards death, and how these are reflected in their respective liturgies and sacred texts.
In this second event in the four-part series on death with Anne Fremantle, the anthropologist Dr. Margaret Mead talks about the way death is experienced, understood, and responded to in different societies throughout the world.
The first of a four-part series on death with Anne Freemantle, P.L Travers, speaks about archetypes in mythology concerning death, sleep, and the nature of living and dying as it relates to contemporary literature.
Penelope Gilliatt speaks with Anne Fremantle about the writing process, working for "The New Yorker," and being a film critic.
Muriel Rukeyser, former President of PEN America, speaks with Anne Freemantle on the state of free of expression in Korea and the imprisonment of Kim Chi Ha, as well as the topic of "the writer as activist."
Kampen discusses her professional path, first as a journalist for weekly papers, then as an author of humor books. She also describes, in detail, her travels through the Soviet Union.
Thomas Fleming talks about his experience of growing up in the Irish-American community in New Jersey and about his intellectual development in history and literature.
Kosinski discusses his two novels "The Painted Bird" and "Steps." The author talks about whether "Painted Bird" was autobiographical, and if that should be of importance to a reader, as well as about the metaphors found throughout the book. Kosinski then discusses being a teacher, and the differences he sees in European and American students.
Playwright and author Jerome Weidman gives his opinions on the problems with reviews and reviewers.
Sports-writer John Tunis gives advice to young writers and discusses what he would have done differently in his career, including not getting friendly with editors and not accepting advances.
Composer Ned Rorem reads his essay "Ladies' Music," on the subject of women and music, especially female composers.
Taken from the PEN America event State of the First Amendment 1992- 1993: Mean Speech and Other Freedoms, the late Nat Hentoff briefly and succinctly articulates his interpretation of the intersection of actions within the 1st amendment.
Morton discusses the struggles of being a writer facing issues including, as he says, "literary paranoia." Morton further details the challenges in the process of publishing a book.
The children's book author Sidney Offit tells stories about his childhood and his beginnings as a writer.
In a series Lenore Marshall called "The Writer As Activist," the author discusses the divided life of a writer, which she calls a "double life." She speaks about the dual responsibilty of the writer to not only produce work, but to effect social change, a role she herself took on.
Leon Edel discusses the components of a strong biography, including literary biography (his field), drawing on workshops he has run. Edel touches on writing stages that include: choosing a subject, criticism, the quest for material, the question of the use of psychoanalysis, and how to depict the passing of time in a biography.
In a series Flood called "The Writer Himself", the author focuses on a writer's relationship to professional organizations in their field.
This event is a tribute to the poet Louis Zukofsky, who had recently passed away. Allen Ginsberg talks about what he learned from Zukofsky's work about sound, line, and language, and how he has tried to apply it; Hugh Seidman, who was Zukofsky's student at Brooklyn Polytechnic, reads from Zukofsky's major work "A" and talks about the influence Zukofsky had on him, in life and poetry; Robert Creeley also reads from "A" and discusses his friendship with Zukofsky; and Celia Zukofsky, the poet's widow, ends the event by discussing on her collaborations with her husband, on a translation of Catullus and on setting Zukofsky's poetry to music.
This event is the second in a series of readings and talks in September. All of the panelists are fiction writers are near the age of 30. The main talking point of the event is "Why write?" Also explored is whether or not writers of today have the same impetus to write as authors from previous generations, whether writing is a commercial endeavor, and what panelists thought they could accomplish as writers. Thomas Beller, Martha McPhee, Jill Eisenstadt, Walter Kirn, and Brianna Hyneman are the featured panelists. Vince Passaro is the moderator.
John Brooks gives a talk on the lack of novels that depict Americans and their relationship to money; Brooks argues against what he describes as the American notion of an antithesis between the literary and financial. To highlight his points, he reads excerpts from his book "Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938."
Beckham touches on ideas of autobiography versus fiction in novels, not heeding critics, and shedding light on the creative process of writing through describing his own experience writing his first novel "My Main Mother." He also reads excerpts from the book.
Hercules speaks about racial issues in the U.S. between the African-American and white populations, as well as class conflict.
In this radio spot, Kaufman interviews herself, mainly discussing her book "Up the Down Staircase."
Poet Muriel Rukeyser talks about her love for New York City and reads some of her poems.
The event was co-organized by PEN's Writers in Exile Center. During the event, poems are read in many languages including Spanish, English, Russian, and Lithuanian. Participants include Manilo Argueta, Joseph Brodsky, Hwang Sok-Yong, Ninotchka Rosca, and Tomas Venclova.
Mark Strand reads Zagajewski's poems in English, followed by Zagajewski reading the same pieces in Polish.
In this reading organized in collaboration with the PEN Writers in Exile group, Hungarian, Iranian, Ukrainian, and Chinese writers read from their work. Moderated by Clara Györgyey.
In this event, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian writers who live in exile read their poetry, short stories, and novels, both in the original languages and in translation. It is co-presented with the PEN Writers in Exile USA group. Participants include Clara Györgyey, László Baránszky-Jób, Marc Nasdor, Wolodymyr Bilajiw, Emil Draitser, Anna Frajlich, and Marta Tarnawsky.
In this event, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish, and Spanish poets—and Algirdas Landsbergis, a playwright—in exile read their work. Participants also include Diana Senechal, Tamás Aczél, Manuel Duran, József Bakucz, Anna Frajlich, Elime Horvath, Sándor András, and Tomas Venclova.
Hungarian poets Laszlo Baranszky and András Sándor read from their works. This is the third in a series of events co-organized by PEN America and Writers in Exile. In opening statements the moderator notes that the event was originally planned to feature all of the main contributors of an avant-garde magazine called "Arcano." Due to challenges in coordinating the contributors, who live in various parts of the world, and a program appropriate for them, only 2 of them are present at the event. Baranszky, uses war dispatch tapes (translated into English) throughout parts of his event. He reads in both English and Hungarian. Sandor reads a selection of his works, including the poem "Nemo" and "Growing Pains," In English and Hungarian.
This is a reading in honor of PEN Writers in Prison Day (October 19th), during which contemporary writers read work by imprisoned or exiled writers from the past: Richard Howard reads from Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis"; Elizabeth Hardwick reads a letter Sir Walter Raleigh wrote on the eve of his execution; Susan Sontag speaks about Marina Tsvetaeva and reads from a 1932 essay, "Art and the Light of Conscience"; and an unidentified participant reads medieval Hebrew poetry and a section from Dante's "Inferno."
The event, which takes place at The New School, features writers from seven different African countries speaking on what a writer's role is during periods of political unrest. Talking points include Pan-Africanism, what can authors contribute, what penalties have they had to already face for speaking out on issues, and how free are African writers to write? Kwame Anthony Appiah acts as the moderator. Panelists include Tayeb Salih, Osonye Tess Onwueme, Njabulo Ndebele, Mbulelo Mzamane, V.Y. (Valentin-Yves Mudimbe), Ama Ata Aidoo, Dr. Rashidah Ismaili Abubakr, and Jack Mapanje.
In the second event organized by the Women's Committee, twelve writers discuss mentorships, friendships, and other relationships between women writers past and present. Mary Gordon introduces the event. The writers discussed range widely, from Bettina von Arnim and Karoline von Günderrode, friends and fellow radicals in Frankfurt in the height of German Romanticism, to journalist Mary Heaton Vorse who covered the strikes and labor movements in Michigan in the early years of the twentieth century, to Alice Childress's tribute to her grandmother, who taught her to write by encouraging her to tell stories about the people they saw on the streets of Harlem. There are some problems with the audio near the end of the event. Participants include Nancy Milford, Silvia Tennenbaum, Vivian Gornick, E. M. Broner, Grace Paley, Jane Cooper, Luisa Valenzuela, Judith Malina, Karen Malpede, Alice Childress, and Sarah E. Wright.
This is, as the moderator Erica Jong describes it, an "afternoon of women reading from their favorite colleagues in different languages." Six American writers read work from around the world: some highlights are Jane Lazarre's reading from Christa Wolf's novel "Cassandra," readings of the work of the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska by both Magda Bogin and Jessica Hagedorn, and Jewelle Gomez's simultaneously sharp and funny criticism, in her introduction of the work of the Chilean poet Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz, of the barriers queer female writers of color face in the publishing industry and the literary establishment.
The East German writer Christa Wolf and Grace Paley discuss literature, politics, and activism in the age of the nuclear arms race. In this wide-ranging conversation, Wolf talks about how her books examine the conflicts between individuals and the societies they live in, about inner censorship, about the classical figure Cassandra (subject of her recent novel), and the obligation she feels, when in the West, to counteract the simplistic, demonized image of socialist countries she encounters there. Wolf speaks in German, and Christine Friedlander translates her responses.
Katherine Dunn reads excerpts from her novel "Geek Love," Lawson Fusao Inada reads some of his poems, Andrew Hope reads some of his poems, Ken Kesey reads his introduction to "Caverns" by O. U. Levon, and Barry Lopez reads from his writings. The event is moderated by Larry McMurtry.
This poetry reading is the last part of a three-part program focusing on Chinese literature and human rights. Three poets, originally from Beijing but currently living in exile, are featured in the event. There are three sets of readings; poems are read in Chinese and then in English. Duo Duo's poems are read by Jayne Cortez. Then, Huang Beiling's work is read by Eliot Weinberger. Poet Bei Dao addresses the pressure of perceived political tones in his writing; Kenneth Koch then reads selections from Dao's collection of poems "The August Sleepwalker." Professor M.L. (Macha) Rosenthal gives opening comments.
The full title of this event, which was organized by the PEN Women's Committee, is "War and Peace: Male and Female Perspectives." It begins with a reading from Quaker activist Lady Borton from her book about the Vietnamese "boat people"; this is followed by a discussion between the panelists of Christa Wolf's novel "Cassandra" and what light it sheds on male and female perspectives about war and peace. The event ends with an open reading, in which panelists and audience members are encouraged to read, as Graces Paley puts it, "something from literature that they love or that really makes them mad." Other participants include Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Carolyn Heilbrun, Wesley Brown, Bharati Mukherjee, Norman Rush, Daniela Gioseffi, Rae Dalven, and Ilsa Gilbert.
In opening remarks, Voinovich describes his life as an author under the Russian government, prior to being exiled (with his family) from the Soviet Union, the persections he endured—including an episode in which the KGB poisioned him. He speaks in Russian with an English translator. Ted Solotaroff then details the government's seven-year "total campaign aimed against Voinovich's identity, as well as his vocation as a writer." This reprisal came in response to Voinovich's work satirizing the Red Army. One of his books discussed is "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin." The author also discusses the difficulties of adjusting to his new environment as an exile, and Soviet literary bureaucrats versus true Soviet authors. Throughout the event, both Richard Lourie and Ted Solotaroff pose questions to Voinovich.
This event, co-sponsored by Writers in Exile, is partly to celebrate the new Ukrainian Centre of PEN International, located in Kiev, Ukraine. The event is also a tribute to Ukrainian Literature. All featured writers whose works are read were born in Ukraine, with the exception of two; all are Ukrainian exiles living in the U.S. Works of Ukranian writers who passed away as the result of the regime they lived under are also presented, like Vasyl Stus. Larissa Lorette reads an excerpt of Mykola Rudenko's poem "The Cross" in English, followed by a reading of the work by Rudenko. "Exit to Doom" is read by its author—Dr. Ostap Tarnawsky—in Ukrainian, followed by an English reading by Lorette. In English a selection of poems from both Vasyl Stus and Vasyl Symonenko are presented.
The central question under discussion here is "What has the literature of the war taught us politically, morally, or otherwise?" Panelists discuss the different ways that the Vietnam War has been written about (the span of different focuses and types of writing is well-represented in their own work) and the effects of the war on American literature and life. Participants include Harry Maurer, Frances FitzGerald, Robert Olen Butler, George Davis, Tim O'Brien, and C.D.B. Bryan.
The theme of the panel at United Methodist Church is the representation of AIDS in the press. Specific topics that are discussed include how the press covers medical issues surrounding AIDS—in particular the reporting of alternative theories of AIDS transmission and the assumption that HIV is the cause of AIDS—homophobia and AIDS coverage, how the press has handled AIDS among women, and how the press has handled AIDS coverage of Black and Hispanic communities versus the way they handle the coverage of the gay community. There is a very involved Q&A portion of this event. Panelists include Ann Fettner, Nicholas Wade, Peg Byron, Dr. Iris Davis, Larry Kramer, and Charles Ortleb.
This event was co-sponsored by PEN and PEN's Exiled Writer Center which worked with both domestic and international writers. Dorin Tudoran, Tomas Venclova, Clara George and read from their works, and discuss their experiences as writers in exile.
In this event, Maureen Howard, Robert Stone, and Tobias Wolff give short talks about different aspects of Mark Twain, and then the panelists discuss matters such as Twain's Americanness, the ambivalence of his public role (Stone calls him "a truly subversive writer who had to live out his life as a tame gadfly"), and his influence on ensuing generations of writers.
Breon Mitchell, Burton Pike, and John E. Woods read and comment on their translations from Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Thomas Mann. Mitchell reads the final chapter of "The Trial," Pike reads three passages of Musil's writings that he did not include in the novel, "Man Without Qualities," and Woods reads from "The Magic Mountain."
A panel that discusses the second edition of "The Handbook for the Literary Translators," prepared by the translation committee of the PEN American center. Panelists discuss the current status of literary translation, working conditions of translators and their rights in the publishing industry. Panelists include Rika Lesser, Leon Friedman, Edith Grossman, and Keith Goldsmith.
This event presents the workings of "literary magazines from the inside out," by focusing on the Threepenny Review magazine. Wendy Lesser, founding editor of the magazine, is a key speaker and moderator of this event. Panelists—Daniel Wolff, Elizabeth Hardwick, Irene Oppenheim, Mindy Aloff, and Jonathan Galass—including read excerpts from their work that have been published in the magazine, and discuss writing for a non-profit literary press.
A panel discussion of what, why and how translations are published by large commercial, small independent, and university presses. Editors, translators, and publishers share their experiences of publishing translations. Panelists include David Kornacker, Timothy Bent, Sara Bershtel, Robert Driessen, Willis Regier, and Carol Volk.
In this recording, theorist and critic George Steiner, with PEN President Susan Sontag, gives a talk in which he analyzes a single passage from Book 24 of the Iliad in numerous translations, from Chapman, Pope and Fitzgerald's translations all the way up to Christopher Logue's, for what they tell us about the translation between the body and the mind. "What," he asks, "is the channel whereby the body's ache becomes grammatical, becomes metaphorical, becomes a simile?" A deeply erudite and provocative discussion of translation, ranging from Borges and Beckett's acts of self-translation to the untranslatability of divine speech to the way that a great translation "gives you the impression of being the realization and unfolding of one of the potentialities that the original did not have time to fulfill."
Manuel Ramos Otero, June Jordan, E.L. Doctorow, Jamake Highwater, and Dolores Prida discuss the status of silenced American writers for various reasons including their ethnicity, race, sexuality, and their political views.
Viktor Golyshev, Daniil Alexandrovic Granin, Fazil Iskander, and Dmitry Mikhailovich Urnov touch on their specific paths in the literary field—such as translating works, writing prose, or writing poetry. Granin reads from his recently published controversial article "On Mercifulness" in Russian, then an English reading by William Styron. William Styron also gives an introduction of the author, particularly about his time as a soldier during WWII in Russia. Iskander reads an excerpt from his book "Sandro of Chegem" in Russian, then it is read by Stone in English. Urnov reads his works in English. Toni Morrison is the moderator.
The event starts off with a discussion about "The Human Experience," an anthology of Russian-English poetry and prose. When printed, it was, "the first of its kind: an anthology published simultaneously in the United States and the Soviet Union that brought together 40 brilliant writers—half of them American, half of them Russian..." Hugh Seidman reads Oleg Grigoryevich Chukhontsev's poems "When the Village Daylight Dimmed" and "And in the Dark" in English, then Chukhontsev reads in Russian. Mary Morris gives introductory remarks on and reads from Anatoli Kim's story "Roadstop in August." Before Kim reads the piece in Russian, he gives a few remarks on his trajectory as a writer. During the second half of the event, Russian panelists talk about varied topics like where they think literary development in their country will go in the future—after recent government restrictions on publishing have been lifted. Reeve, also a contributor to the anthology, is the moderator. Grace Paley poses a question during the Q&A.
In opening remarks, this event is described as showcasing "literature from and about a land that is being terribly tortured." The Freedom to Write Committee co-organized the event. Richard Bernstein acts as moderator. Anna Allott, the author of PEN's new report on censorship existing in Burma at the time of this event, "Inked Over, Ripped Out: Burmese Storytellers and the Censors," discusses her findings. Aris reads a statement from his mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under detention for four years. A short story, by San San Nweh, called "The Children Who Play in the Back Alleyways", is read by Marianne Wiggins. U Win Pe's story "The Day the Weather Broke" is read by Jeffrey Eugenides. Wendy Law-Yone reads from her book "The Coffin Tree." Norman Rush reads an excerpt from Nyi Pu Lay's "The Python." Rose Styron reads Moe's poems, including "Picking Crickets" and "Open the Door." Karen Swenson reads her poems "Cold Blood", "The Garden Again," and "Hatching." Nu Nu Yi's story "He's Not My Father" is presented.
The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe and Susan Sontag discuss, among other topics, Achebe's 1975 lecture about the racism in Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness," the questions that using the language of a colonizer raises for the writer of a formerly colonized land or people, and the relationship between literature and morality.
The theme of the event, organized by the Freedom to Write Committee, is the current situation in South Korea for authors, editors, and journalists. Participants include Edward Albee, Max Apple, and Madeline L'Engle. Chi-ha's "The Story of a Sound" is read. Susan Sarandon reads from pre-20th Century poetry including "Dumping House" and "Virtuous Women." Two South Korean speakers share their experiences regarding human rights issues, and on the state of affairs for writers in their country. One of the speakers details his time as a prisoner in South Korea.
Dennis Brutus, June Jordan, and Philip Levine read from the works of authors and poets of South Africa who were silenced by the apartheid regime, including Govan Mbeki, Bessie Head, Ingoapele Madingoane, Breyten Breytenbach, and Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali. Sipho Sepamla reads from his work via phone to the audience. This event is part of the Silenced Voices series.
This event honors three Filipino poets, José Sison, Mila Aguilar, Jose Lacaba, whose work is read by American poets and writers. Some of the reading occurs in Tagalog. It begins with a discussion by Ninotchka Rosca of the repression of the Marcos regime and its particular actions against writers, and the US support of Marcos. Rosca then introduces each reading with reminiscences and biographical information about the poets. The event ends with the singing of a protest poem set to music, in Tagalog. This event is part of the Silenced Voices series. Quincy Troupe moderates.
Anton Shammas discusses his creative practice, touching on points such as writing in an "adversarial language," if language can carry in it religion (specifically addressed by the moderator is the " Jewishness of Hebrew"), and whether Israel should have been made a Jewish state. Also highlighted in the event is the author's recently published novel "Arabesques."
The event celebrates the voice of the Russian poet in prison, Irina Ratushinskaya, by reading her poems. This is part of the Silenced Voices series. Participants include Joseph Brodsky, Marina Chomkina, Carolyn Forché, and Grace Shulman.
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, a Syrian author and translator, discusses the role of women and their representation in Arab literature.
Sam Shepard is introduced by Robert Polito and Joseph Chaikin at the New School. The playwright then reads from his work.
Via telephone, Sipho Sepamla reads his poems, including "This Man" and "Clean up the Mess".
This recording contains three events related to the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie and the Iranian fatwa declared against him for his novel "The Satanic Verses." The first features many notable authors reading from his book "The Satanic Verses." At the time of this reading three major book sellers—B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, and Waldenbooks—had pulled the book from their shelves. During the first reading, it is proposed that once the event is finished all present march to a nearby B. Dalton store to picket. Some speakers read from the book (including Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, Robert Stone, and Mary Gordon), while others give speeches in support of Rushdie, as well as on the importance of freedom of expression. Claire Bloom reads from the book, and also reads a statement from Philip Roth. A statement from James Michener is also read by the moderator. Further, former PEN President Norman Mailer gives his take on the situation. Later a press conference is held with statements written by Norman Mailer and Edward Said that are circulated to the press. In addition to selected members of the American Muslim Action Committee, J. Anthony Lukas, Norman Mailer, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Robert Massie answer press questions. In the third event, panelists including Carl W. Ernst and Betty Friedan read and discuss various Rushdie works including passages from "The Jaguar Smile," "Midnight's Children," "Shame," and "The Satanic Verses." Other participants include Christopher Hitchens, Gay Talese, Edward Said, Robert Stone, Diane Trilling, E.L. Doctorow, T.C. Boyle, Roberta Smoodin, and Alvin Toffler.
Romanian writers reply to the question, "Is the word a weapen?" Poet Nina Cassian discusses her literary path in Romania; literary critic Matei Călinescu talks about censorship of literature and its history in Romania after WWII; and author Norman Manea talks about his relationship with the word and literature.
In his opening comments, Alexander Semyonovich Kushner speaks in Russian, with an English interpreter. John Ashbery reads selections of Kushner's poems in English, followed by Kushner reading them in Russian. Yunna Petrovna Morits introduces her work in Russian, after which Carolyn Forché then reads the poet's work in English, followed by a reading in Russian by Morits. Susan Sontag introduces the event at CUNY.
Tina McElroy Ansa reads the chapter "Night" from her novel, "Baby of the Family," Madison Smartt Bell reads his story "Hammerhead," Percival Everett reads his story "How the West was Won," Cathryn Hankla reads excerpt from her novel, and Jill McCorkle reads part of her story "Carnival Lights." The panel and panelists are introduced by Williams Matthews.
A reading event as a tribute to Robert Benchley on the 100th anniversary of his birth, in which Calvin Trillin, Roy Blount Jr., Veronica Geng, and Fran Lebowitz read excerpts of their work.
Judy Blume, Amy Tan, Allen Ginsberg, and Quincy Troupe each discuss how their own work has been subject to varying types of censorship. To further their point, each reads from their work, or other literature that has influenced them. Blume reads from her book "Deenie." Troupe reads from "Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe." Tan reads from writings that influenced her which include passages from the Bible, "The Catcher in the Rye," and "Psychopathia Sexualis." Ginsberg reads "A Non-Smoking Anti-Commercial," a passage from "Howl," and an excerpt from William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch." Other topics include obscenity, Jesse Helms, Jr., NEA grants, and language used in the arts.
Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky reads some of his work and then discusses his life and writing with Dana Goia and Paul Schmidt.
The event is held to honor the U.S. born writer and photographer, Margaret Randall, and assist her in her struggle to win her immigration case, in which under the ideological exclusion clause of 1952 McCarran–Walter Act the government was trying to deport her. Margaret Randall reads some of her poems. Her attorney, David D. Cole, explains her case and comments on it. Ariel Nair, the vice chairman of the Helsinki Watch and America's Watch, talks about the McCarran–Walter Act, and then Randall discusses her case. Frances FitzGerald talks about other implications of this case for the American writer.
The event was organized by The Freedom to Write Committee. Akhmadulina reads her work in Russian, and Smith reads then in English. "The Christmas Tree in the Hospital Corridor" and "The Resort" are a few of the poems read in this event. A longer reading, with no translation, is attached to the this event and follows the discussion.
Yuan-Tsung Chen and her husband, Jack Chen, talk about their writing and publishing paths.
The event is one part of a four series program, co -sponsored by La Maison Francaise of NYU and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Throughout the event authors read excerpts in French of their novels, and other presenters also read from the author's book in English. An excerpt from Patrick Besson's "Dara" is read by Jay McInerney, following which Besson reads from the novel. Mark Polizzotti reads a section of "Sans la Misericorde du Christ", written by Raphaele Bianciotti. (The author himself was not able to attend the event for personal reasons). An excerpt of Yann Queffelec's "Les Noces Barbares" is read by Linda Coverdale, after which the novelist reads from his work. Michel Braudeau's work "Naissance d'une Passion" is read by Raymond Carver, then by the author himself. A passage of Raphaele Billetdoux's "Mes Nuits Sont Plus Belles que vos Jours" is read by Lydia Davis, and then by the author herself.
Part of PEN's series on poets and their personal canon, this event features Stanley Kunitz discussing and reading his work. The majority of the event is Kunitz reading from the writings of those who inspired him during his career, including poems by John Keats and Walt Whitman.
Richard Prince reads from two of his novels, "Ladies' Man" and "Clockers," and answers questions in this event from the series "Sounds at Sunset," held in Hudson River Park. Price discusses at length the process of writing "Clockers"—the research he did obsessively for two years in Jersey City, the cops and criminals and ordinary citizens he got to know—and his feelings about the upcoming film of the book, which was directed by Spike Lee.
Robert Polito reads some of his poems, and Cori Jones, introduced by Bobbie Ann Mason, reads from her work. John Guare introduces Ellen McLaughlin, who reads from a play called "A Narrow Bed," with a partner. Anne Bernays introduces Marjorie Waters, who reads from her work "Still Life."
Gretel Ehrlich reads from "This Autumn Morning", Richard Ford reads from "Wildlife," Joy Harjo reads her poems "Deer Dancer" and "Northern Lights", Frederick Manfred reads from "Of Lizards and Angels" and a poem, James Welch reads from "The Indian Lawyer," and Larry Woiwode reads from "Indian Affairs" and some other pieces. The participants are introduced by Larry McMurtry.
In a reading session at the Performing Arts Library, three new playwrights are introduced and they read excerpts of their plays. The participants are Robert Marx , John Guare, Charlie Schulman, Suzan-Lori Parks, Mindi Dickstein, David Henry Hwang, and Wendy Wasserstein.
A marathon reading given in honor of the first international Writers for Peace Day. After an introduction in which Kirkpatrick Sales describes how the day came to be and what is being done in other countries to celebrate, twelve writers give readings of their own works and those of others on the subjects of war and peace. HIghlights include Native American poet Maurice Kenny reading his poetry about the Wounded Knee Massacre and the Native American experience; Oscar Hijuelos reading from Homer, Ovid, Sophocles, and other classical sources; and Norman Mailer ending the day by reading from his book "Armies of the Night." Readers include Jerome Charyn, Amy Clampitt, Richard Gilman, Diana Chang, Allen Ginsberg, Grace Paley, Frances FitzGerald, Derek Parsons, and Arthur Kopit.
For the second International Writers for Peace Day, PEN convenes a panel on the topic of the "hereditary enemy." The writers invited to speak critique this topic, turning the conversation instead to subjects like the history of racism and the formation of identity. Highlights include Anne Nelson's discussion of the U.S's treatment of Puerto Rico over the course of its history and the double standard applied in general by the United States in Latin America vs. at home, and Gregory Kolovakos's eloquent account of how coming out as a gay man politicized him.
In this event, speakers have 10 minutes each to read excerpts of their work. The first segment of the event features Gay Talese, Erika Duncan, Daniela Gioseffi, Jaime Manrique, Fran Manushkin, and Isabella Leitner; Maureen Howard acts as moderator. In addition to reading her own poems, Gioseffi also reads the poem "On a Japanese Beach" by Nina Cassian. In the second segment of the event, Grace Paley begins by reading from her own work, and then introduces the next speakers. Jean Marzollo, David Lifson, Armand Schwerner, Ilsa Gilbert, and Helen Duberstein are the featured writers. After this, Galway Kinnell reads from his own work, and then introduces the speakers who read in the third segment of the event. Peter Kane Dufault, Penny Harter, William J. Higginson, Samuel Menashe and Jean Detra are the speakers in this segment. In the final group, Jayne Cortez begins by reading her work, then introduces readers Naomi Replansky,Enid Harlow, and Layle Silbert .
The editor of Parnassus Magazine, Herb Leibowitz, is the key speaker and moderator of this event in which panelists discuss magazines that review poetry, and poetry criticism in publications. Further, the challenges that smaller types of magazines face are also discussed. Other panelists include Cynthia Macdonald, Judith I. Gleason, and Ross Feld.
Mexican poet Octavio Paz reads his poems "Nocturno de San Ildefonso" and "Brotherhood" in Spanish, and Eliot Weinberger reads his translations of both works. Poets Joseph Brodsky and Paz also discuss such topics as the nature and place of history (riffing off of Paz's line "History is an error"), whether democracy and metaphysics can be reconciled, and what each of them is trying to do with their poetry.
Brief, five-minute excerpt from this event on literature, women, abortion, and the right to choose.
"The White Castle", Pamuk's first novel to be translated into English—which had just been published and received an enthusiastic reception—is the subject of this discussion between the future Nobel Prize winner and critic Paul Berman. Pamuk and Berman discuss, among much else, the political expectations Turkish readers bring to fiction and how Pamuk was attempting to disarm or play with them, Pamuk's great love of bookstores and libraries, and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and how it was received in Turkey.
This event is hosted by PEN's Open Book Committee, held at the central library of the Los Angeles Library system. Also represented at the event is Los Angeles based independent bookstore Eso Won Books, who has a table set up at the event selling some of their books. The moderator Walter Mosley makes opening statements, including reading the manifesto of PEN's Open Book Committee. In part it states: "The one and only purpose of the PEN Open Book Committee is to open the world of publishing to the richness and diversity of the cultures that make up America." Panelists make individual comments about challenges in the publishing industry, specifically regarding the topic of diversity. The panel is made up of Bebe Moore Campbell, Leroy V. Quintana, Marie Dutton Brown, Diane D'Andrade ( Senior Children Books Editor at Harcourt Brace, San Diego), Liz Williams (Marketing Director at Valentine Publishing), Paul Yamazaki (head book buyer at City Lights Bookstore).
This event is hosted by PEN's Open Book Committee. Walter Mosley, who oversees PEN's Open Book Committee, gives opening remarks. He talks about the Committee and what its purposes are, namely to broaden the range of the publishing world, and deepen its reserves. As Mosley says, "We want to come into this world, this world of publishing, which is so awfully white, and change it. And make it so that it reaches a bigger audience, and so that it has a greater sensibility about itself and its work, which effects both white and non-white publishers." John F. Baker (Editorial Director of Publishers Weekly) is the moderator. Panelists discuss issues pertaining to the need for multiculturalism in publishing. Speakers include Gerald Howard (editor in the trade department of W. W. Norton & Co.), Emmanuel Joseph Barron (the African American specialist at Random House; and the only sales representative regularly selling to African American bookstores), Tracy Sherrod (editor at Henry Holt & Co.), and Yoji Yamaguchi (editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
Walter Mosley is the moderator and introdeces the panelists, who include Neeti Madan, Dawn Davis, Paola Fernandez Rana, Juanita T. James, and others. Panelists, who are in the publishing industry with different kinds of expertise, share their experiences on diversity in the industry as well as other relevant issues.
The guiding questions for this event: Is there or should there be a cultural response to the threat of the nuclear end? If so, how might one respond to that threat as a writer? And does the nature of that threat alter the writer's task? The panel of writers provides different perspectives on these questions, with Galway Kinnell, for instance, discussing the way he thinks the knowledge of Hiroshima will affect poetry in the future and Grace Paley talking about learning to listen to the participants in the anti-nuclear movement.
The six panelists discuss how (or if) their cultural backgrounds impacted the material they produce, and in what way. Initially Cynthia Ozick opposes the use of the phrase "ethnic subculture," which was included as part of the description of the theme of the panel. She gives an opening statement to explain her stance on the phrase, stating that it perpetuates the marginality of groups, and reinforces the division of groups. The other panelists include Oscar Hijuelos, Frederic Tuten, Wesley Brown, Fay Chiang, and Mary Gordon.
In this event, Jervis Anderson reads from his article, "Standing Out There On The Issues", published in the New Yorker in 1986, Louis Auchincloss reads his short story "The Single Reader" from his book "Power of Attorney," Nicholasa Mohr reads her short story "The Operation", Grace Paley reads her short stories, "Politics," and "Northeast Playground," Harvey Shapiro reads poems from his book "National Cold Storage Company," and Tom Wolfe reads an excerpt from his novel, "The Bonfire of the Vanities."
New York Writers read from their works about the greatest city in the world, New York City. Readers include Jimmy Breslin, Wesley Brown, Hortense Calisher, Jerome Charyn, Thulani Davis, Allen Ginsberg, Tama Janowitz, and Richard Price
Four emerging writers—Catherine Bowman, Elizabeth Egloff, Mel Shapiro, and Stuart Klawans—read their work.
This event featured four emerging writers—Nicholas Samaras, Adrienne Macdonald, Alexander Lobrano, and Mitch Berman—who were introduced by more established writers: Mary Morris, Carolyn Forché, Gail Godwin, and Jaime Manrique. Each of the four emerging writers then read excerpts from their work.
Four emerging writers—including Mark Coovelis, Jeanne McCullough, Aurelie Sheehan—read their work. Jean Valentine, Frederick Tuten, George Plimpton, and Frank MacShane introduce.
Four emerging writers—Ana Maria Simo, Nancy Sales, Suzanne Rhodenbaugh, and Michelle Owens—read their work.
This event introduces four emerging writers—Ralph Savarese, Barbara Jones, Amy Ehrlich, and Anna Shapiro—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. It was the 15th event of this kind organized by PEN America. The reading was located in the Endicott Bookstore in NYC.
This event introduces four emerging writers—Jessica Greenbaum, David Hinton, Keith Adams, and Paula Redick—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. Adams, due to an illness, was absent. It was the 17th event of this kind organized by PEN America. The reading was located in the Endicott Bookstore in NYC.
This event introduces four emerging writers—Vincent Katz, Martha Bear, Jean Air, and Barbara Selfridge—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. It was the 16th event of this kind organized by PEN America. The reading was located in the Endicott Bookstore in NYC. Kenneth Koch, Bharati Mukherjee, Dana Goia, and Grace Paley introduce.
This event featured six emerging writers—Ellen Currie, Bonnie Friedman, Kathy Elaine Anderson, Phyllis Moore, Matthew Cariello, and Wendy Hesford—introduced by more established writers, among them Gloria Naylor and Louis Simpson. Each of the six emerging writers then read excerpts from their work.
Four emerging writers—Betsy Lerner, Eugene Richie, Susan Pliner, and Donald Pizzarello—read from their work.
This event featured four emerging writers—Glyn Vincent, Eamon Grennan, Marjorie Sandor, and Kathleen Collins—who are introduced by more established writers. The emerging writers then read excerpts from their work, including a staged reading from a play.
This event introduces five emerging writers—Frederick Hudson, Sharon Sheehe Stark, Jack Flynn, Craig Raine, and Sylvia Moss—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. Begins with a fragment of an unidentified reading.
This event featured four emerging writers—Eve Ottenberg, Alan Brown, Ellen Currie, and Zach Rogow—who were introduced by different PEN America staff members. Each of the four emerging writers read excerpts from their work, a way of familiarizing the public with their writing. This New Writers Evening event was held at Endicott Bookstore in NYC, the event also took place on later dates in Boston and Houston. Readings by Currie and Ottenberg are first, followed by poor audio recordings of the remaining readers.
This event introduces four emerging writers—Wesley Brown, Fred Hudson, and two others—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. This reading was located Lincoln Center in NYC on February 6th. Brown and Hudson promote the event speaking on air at a radio station.
This event introduces four emerging writers—Fae Myenne Ng, Janet Kronstadt, playwright Margaret Gilbert, and poet Katie Coles—to the public by the authors reading excerpts from their works. It was the seventh event of this kind organized by PEN America. The reading was located in the Endicott Bookstore in NYC.
This evening is a tribute to James Laughlin, the founder and publisher of New Directions. Laughlin starts things off by reading his own poems about a few of the writers he had published, including Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, Dylan Thomas, and Tennessee Williams. He is followed by writers and editors who each pay tribute to Laughlin and New Directions, talking about their first encounters with the press's books and the profound influence New Directions, and Laughlin personally, have had on their lives. Highlights include Hayden Carruth reading the poem "Purana, Meaning Once Upon a Time" which he had written while living in a cabin on Laughlin's Connecticut property, and talking about Laughlin's generosity to him and to many other writers; Robert Creeley reading the poem "Hello" from the first book of his that New Directions published; and Eliot Weinberger declaring himself a "fundamentalist New Directionist".
In opening remarks, the speaker notes that the title of the event does not mean the featured poets are new on the scene, but bring new perspectives with their writing. Each poet then reads one poem, followed by a group discussion. There is also an improvisation between the poets in which they narrate their works, simultaneously, to demonstrate polyphonics. Charles Lynch is the moderator. Poets include Sekou Sundiata, Judy D. Simmons, Sanra Maria Esteves, and Louis Reyes Rivera.
To start, Lore Segal and Bharati Mukherjee give general statements on the immigrant experience. Then all the panelists, including Eva Hoffman, discuss talking points offered by Edmund Keeley, who is the moderator. Topics like what makes immigrant writing a distinguishable category, the difference between refugee, expatriate, or emigré authors, what are the benefits or disadvantages of writing in an adopted language are delved into.
This panel examines the special concerns when talking about the laws, in general, of libel and how they might act as censors by regulating the content during publication. How these subtle legislative acts for such issues as divulging classified information, limits of reporting under the notion of national security and investigating high-level officials for litigation. Panelists include Harriette Dorsen, Donald Freed, Bill Schaap, Herbert Mitgain, Victor Navasky.
Activist Bill McKibbin and poet Gary Snyder discuss the declining status of nature, the global warming, endangered natural habitats and some other environmentalist concerns.
On the first night of this Native American panel, the moderator notes, in his opening statement, through their work the five panelists are accomplished in "preserving the necessary artifacts of the past and giving the proper context and meaning to them in the present." As the sub-title of the event suggests, contemporary Native American writing has been a significant part of the literary field for generations. The event took place over the course of two evenings, held in the second evening at Quality Paperback Book Club, who also co-organized the event. On the first night, at the Tischman Auditorium, panelists read from writers who first influenced them, and then from their own work. As a part of Joy Harjo's reading that night she sings a Lakota woman love song. Harjo is the moderator on the second evening, and there is an emphasis on discussion between the panelists; there are no readings this evening. Both nights feature the same panelists, including N. Scott Momaday, Sherman Alexie, James Welch, and Muriel Miguel.
The annual PEN/Association of American Publishers National Book Week Symposium. Panelists discuss the influence of books on their lives. The panelists are: Jill Dunbar, Cornelius Eady, Paula Fox (who talks about William Faulkner's "Light in August"), Samuel G. Freedman, Cristina Garcia (who talks about writing her book, "Dreaming in Cuban"), Liz Gordon, Chip Kidd (who shares some book proposals that over years he has collected from working at Alfred A. Knopf), Donald S. Lamm, Susan Magrino, Faith Sale, and Joe Spieler. The event is hosted by Robert Lipsyte.
This is Haruki Murakami's first speaking engagement ever, and his conversation with Jay McInerney covers many of the topics that have obsessed Murakami's fans since he first began to publish, from the influence of American culture and literature on his work to the genesis of the typical Murakami protagonist to the development of his style. Murakami and McInerney also discuss Japanese culture, hardboiled crime novels, Raymond Carver, and why earn turn up so often in Murakami's books.
Arthur Miller, recently back from a trip with Harold Pinter to Turkey for International PEN, speaks of his findings abroad. This short radio interview airs a few days before the Prime Minister of Turkey—Turgut Ozal—is set to visit the U.S. to ask for aid for his country. Miller describes human rights violations, censorship of the press, and the lingering effects of the former military state in Turkey. A longer presentation and Q&A follows.
This is a (chaotic) networking event with publishing houses concerning the delicate matter of diveristy in publishing.
As part of the Translation Series, Peter Glassgold moderates a panel discussion on the grey areas of translation and publishing. Panelists include Sy Safransky and David Rieff.
Second in a series organized by the Women's Committee on lost women writers. The American writers Phyllis Raphael, Glenda Adams, Naomi Replansky, and Margo Jefferson read stories of displacement and disruption, international in scope, by Ivy Litvinov, Eve Langley, Helen Adam, and Bessie Head.
In this event, Toni Morrison, Cynthia Macdonald, and Maureen Howard read from the work of three early 20th-century women writers, Margery Latimer, Antonia White, and Storm Jameson, whose books had been recently reprinted by the Feminist Press and Virago. Vivian Gornick introduces the event and the three "lost" writers, whose work encompasses Catholic girls' schools, a childhood spent in the north of England, and the power a strong, unconventional older woman has over a younger one in a small Midwestern town. This is the first of a series of events on lost women writers.
Kirkpatrick Sale opens the first International Writers for Peace Day (March 3, 1985) with a brief history of PEN International and a reading of the charter. Though PEN International was founded in 1921, it was not until 1948 that the charter was approved at the PEN Congress in Copenhagen.
68 years later the Charter of PEN is as sacrosanct as ever, echoing the need for stalwart vigilance as the pendulum of history swings back again.
Please visit https://pen.org/pen-charter for more information.
For this event, writers were asked to bring and read, as Ira Silverberg (the moderator) puts it, "literature, letters, and lore" by and about lesbians and gay men writing prior to the Stonewall uprising. This invitation elicits a tremendous variety of materials, particularly letters, from some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Highlights include Wayne Kostenbaum reading an unpublished letter from Frank O'Hara to James Schuyler about biker gangs, indolence, and Proust; Jacqueline Woodson reading James Baldwin's letters to his brother David and his friend Dan Frank, including a letter in which Baldwin seems to come out to Frank; Carole Maso reading Gertrude Stein's erotic writing (in which the word "cow" stood in for "orgasm"); and Edward Albee, reading (and perilously imitating) Tennessee Williams on his public persona, "that stranger who bears my professional name".
For the second evening on the theme of "Literary Gossip and Romance", writers were again asked to bring work by lesbian and gay authors from the pre-Stonewall era. Highlight include: an elderly Allen Ginsberg reading early poems by Walt Whitman; Gary Indiana reading a letter from William Burroughs about Tangier, self-pity, and the relationship between innocence and depravity (it includes the memorable line "Fuck your neighbor. He may like it."); Jaime Manrique reading from his memoir about Manuel Puig, who gave movie-star nicknames to all the writers of the Latin American Boom (Borges was "Norma Shearer"); and Catherine McKinley reading Lorraine Hansberry's letters (signed with an acronym) to the pioneering lesbian magazine "The Ladder".
A panel of biographers, in which Deirdre Bair shares her experiences of writing biographies of Samuel Beckett and Simone De Beauvoir; Edmund Morris talks about writing lives of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and how a biographer extracts information from senior people; John Richardson speaks of writing Pablo Picasso's personality and life; and Sally Bedell Smith talks about the challenges of writing bigraphies of living subject. Panelists are introduced by Elizabeth Dickey, then Dean of the New School.
A panel discussion with Carolyn Heilbrun, Elinor Langer, Phyllis Rose, and Judith Thurman and moderated by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, in which panelists take part in discussing biography writing of women.
Keorapetse William Kgositsile, the South African poet, discusses the misinformation people outside of South Africa receive on the political issues of his country, and working as an author in exile in the U.S., as well as in exile in his native country. He reads a selection of his poems, including "Logistics" and "Ivory Masks in Orbit." Following the reading, Jayne Cortez, Raymond Patterson, Wilfred Cartey, and Wesley Brown ask Kgositsile questions of their own.
This event is co-sponsored by Mobil Corporation and NYU. Bilge Karasu was a 1991 winner of the Pegasus Prize for his book "Night". Mobil Corporation established this award for writers based in countries that rarely translate works into English. The author reads from his work in Turkish, then the translator of the book, Guneli Gun, reads passages in English. Following the reading, Karasu discusses his place in literature. Mary Lee Settle speaks on Turkish literature. Talat Halman makes an in-depth introduction, and later acts as moderator for the second part of the event—a panel on Turkish literature. The panelists—Settle, Mona Simpson, Karasu, and Gun—discuss a variety of topics such as other notable Turkish authors, challenges of translating into English, and Karasu's impetus for writing "Night."
In this event, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski discusses his book "The Emperor, "about the fall of Haile Selassie, with historian Frances FitzGerald. Kapuscinski also addresses many other topics, including his childhood in war-torn Europe and how this lead him to journalism, the importance of form—and the perpetual reinvention of form—to his work, and the three major developments underway that he believed were transforming the world: the growth of independence movements, the move to cities, and the migration from developing countries to the developed world. Susan Sontag introduces the event by reading a passage from "The Emperor."
Ibrahim Kara-een, the owner of Palestine press services, which was ordered to be closed by the Israeli authorities, and Amnon Zichroni explain the status of the Palestinian press under the Israeli censorship.
This is the first in a series of events dedicated to great American writers (to be followed by events on Emerson, and on Poe). The panelists—Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Hardwick, and William Gass—individually discuss the author's writing. Gass reads a section of "The Golden Bowl" and talks about James' stylistic approach to this novel, including diction and tone. Hardwick reads from "The Awkward Age." She touches on the "peculiarity of his dialogue" in the book. Lastly, Sontag speaks about the garrulousness of Jame's wriitng, though not in a negative way. She talks about his late work (also citing "The Golden Bowl"), and James' interest in consciousness found therein. In the latter portion of the event the panelists discuss James, and his works amongst themselves.
John Irving talks with Michael Ondaatje about historical novels, the writing of "The English Patient," and his other works. The recording is incomplete and cuts off abruptly.
In this recording, Erica Jong interviews Henry Miller at his home. The two novelists discuss, among other topics, how to work through writer's block, how each of them feel about their public image ("Fear of Flying" had just recently been published), and, of course, about sex: pornography, eroticism, the famous "zipless fuck", and the differences between men's and women's experience of—and writing about—sex. The recording is incomplete.
This event begins with a reading by each of the panelists and continues to a wide-ranging discussion of, among other topics, Ernest Hemingway's influence on writing about war, the role of journalists and the media during wartime, and how the experience of war has changed each of the writers speaking here. Panelists include: Harvey Shapiro, Philip Caputo, Robert Stone, Michael Norman, Jane DeLynn, and Louis Simpson.
Hardwick reads excerpts of prose written by poets. Selection include William Carlos Williams' "Voyage of the Mayflower" from "In the American Grain," Coleridge's "Lectures on Shakespeare," T.S. Eliot's essay "Byron," "Notes on Baudelaire" by Jules Laforgue," and Boris Pasternak's "The Death of Mayakovsky."
E. M. Broner, Vivian Gornick, Mary Gordon, Elizabeth Janeway, and Margo Jefferson discuss and analyze the continuing influence of Doris Lessing's novel, "The Golden Notebook."
Pascal Bruckner reads from his novel, "Bittermoon," and Francine du Plessix Gray reads from Régine Deforges's "The Blue Bicycle." Frédérick Tristan reads few passages from his novel in French, and his translator then reads them in English. Emmanuel Hocquard reads a passage from his book, then his translator reads some translated parts in English. Régine Deforges then reads some of her text in French. Elvire Murail reads from her novel, "Stairway C." Jean Echenoz reads from his novel, "Cherokee."
A central talking point is how to interpret and translate from French writers who are not themselves French. Linda Coverdale reads from the book "Creole Tales" by Martinique author Chamoiseau. Marjolijn de Jager reads from the book "Le Petit Prince de Belleville" by Cameroonian author Calixthe Beyala. Carol Volk reads from the book "Corruption" by Moroccan author Ben Jelloun. Annie Cohen-Solal discusses why the featured authors are of importance, and the complexities these authors face writing in the language of a dominant culture "that colonized [them]."
A reading of imprisoned, banned or exiled writers, in which Joseph Brodsky, Hiber Conteris, Toni Morrison, Sigourney Weaver, Edward Said and others read from works of Miklós Radnóti, Isaac Babel, Reza Baraheni, Breyten Breytenbach, Osip Mandelstam, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Ghassan Kanafani, Tawfiq Ziad, Mahmoud Darwish, César Vallejo, Václav Havel, Euripides, Irina Ratushinskaya, Eduardo Galeano, Mila D. Aguilar, Adam Michnik, Nâzım Hikmet, Primo Levi, Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Nguyễn Chí Thiện, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Kim Chi-ha.
The event was held to raise awareness on the ideological exclusion of intellectuals, performed by the United States under the McCarran Internal Security Act. Activist Patricia Derian explains how this Act is performed and authors including John Irving, Arthur Miller, William Styron, and Susan Sontag read from works of authors who were barred from entering the United States: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Pablo Neruda, and others.
Blanche McCrary Boyd, Dorothy Allison, Nicole Breedlove, Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz, and B. Ruby Rich discuss lesbian literature, how lesbian authors write about themselves and how they deal with their gender and queer identity.
Tim Stone, a financial consultant at Merrill Lynch, discusses investment strategy, in the general sense, before going into more detail on the subject. He delves into what a financial consultant is, the difference between accountants, stockbrokers and lawyers—how one should use who and when, the likelihood of making money on investments, how to read financial charts properly, the opulence of retirement plans, issues of insurance, and how to make taxes work to one's advantage.
Maria Irene Fornés, Bertha Harris, Jill Johnston, Barbara Smith, and Lisa Kennedy discuss their experiences as lesbian writers and the legacy of Audre Lorde.
"Heroes Looking Back," is the title of the first panel from a series of two, in which Samuel R. Delany, Sanford Friedman, Allen Ginsberg, Edmund White, and Michael Warner talk about gay writings and representations in their literature and others. They discuss homosexual identity, and touch upon some topics of gay literature, such as coming out and AIDS. The second panel, which occurred later the same day, is titled "Now and Tomorrow."
"Heroes Looking Back," is the title of the first panel from a series of two, in which Samuel R. Delany, Sanford Friedman, Allen Ginsberg, Edmund White, and Michael Warner, talk about gay writings and representations in their literature and others. They discuss homosexual identity, and touch upon some topics of gay literature, such as coming out and AIDS.
Authors including William Phillips and Anthony Burgess read excerpts from four banned books, namely, Bernard Malamud's "The Fixer," Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," John Steinbeck's "East of Eden," and Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn."
This is an evening of performances and readings in response to the siege of Sarajevo. The proceeds from this event were sent to Bosnia, to purchase food and supplies for the winter for Bosnian writers and their families. The evening begins with a performance by Wynton Marsalis and Eric Reed, and is followed by readings and statements of many kinds. Some highlights include: Susan Sontag reading an essay on nationalism by Danilo Kis; David Rieff reading his own reporting from his time in Sarajevo (he had just returned from the city eight days earlier); Paul Berman reading a statement from Salman Rushdie, who was in hiding at this time; Tony Kushner reading from his play about the rise of fascism, "A Bright Room Called Day"; and Arthur Miller reading a piece of his own about a trip he made to Yugoslavia in the 1960s for a PEN Congress.
In a conversation that occurred just a year after "The Name of the Rose" was published in English—and in the midst of its international bestsellerdom—Susan Sontag and Umberto Eco discuss Eco's turn to fiction and other topics. They begin with their mutual interest in Roland Barthes and his works and move on to such subjects as interpretation, post-modernism, popular culture, Parsifal, Sherlock Holmes, the power of badly written novels, and much else, as one might expect from a discussion between two famed intellectual polymaths.
Scenes of Suzanne van Lohuizen's play, The Whizz Kid, are performed by Allen Davis III and Daniel Meltzer. Gerrit Kouwenaar reads some of his poems in Dutch, and their translations are read by Lynne Lawner. Monika van Paemel reads from her novel, The Stone. J. Bernlef reads his poem, "The Juggler" in Dutch, and then Lynne Lawner reads the translation in English. J. Bernlef then reads an excerpt of his novel, Out of Mind. Hans van de Waarsenburg reads his poem "South Wall" in Dutch and then Laurence Joseph reads the tranlation. Hans van de Waarsenburg reads more poems after that. Mary Morris and Jan Honout read excerpts from Rudolf Geel's novel, "The Beloved Venom." Dave Shelley, Jeff Webster, and Carla Molder perform parts of Gerardjan Rijnders's play.
Michael Keplinger, Jane Ginsburg, and Monroe Price discuss the legal details of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, its impact on writers' works, and the context in which this treaty was negotiated. James Gould is the moderator.
Jan Honout, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Gerardjan Rijnders, Suzanne van Lohuizen, Monika van Paemel, and Hans van de Waarsenburg talk about their works, their attitude toward American literature, as well as Dutch and Flemish literature. Henk Bernlef moderates the panel and Johanna Reiss introduces.
To commemorate Robert Duncan's passing—which occurred the same year as this event—poets including Jackson Mac Low, Robert Creeley, and Susan Howe read selections from his poetry. Robert J. Bertholf, Duncan's literary executor, and Peter Glassgold, Duncan's editor at New Directions publishing, also read the poet's work.
An evening to protest the killings of journalists and in particular the murder of Manuel de Dios Unanue, the editor-in-chief of El Diario La Prensa, the Spanish language newspaper of New York City. Panelists include Magda Bogin, Mary Gordon, Warren Hoge, Michael Massing, Walter Mosley, Rossana Rosado, Vicky Sanchez, José Torres, Edgardo Vega Yunqué who pay their tribute to Manuel de Dios Unanue and discuss the current status of journalism and journalists. The event is hosted by Pete Hamill.
Hungarian novelist, György Konrád, discusses the status of East European literature and authors from the 19th century to the communist era. Irving Howe and Ted Solotaroff moderate.
This panel on Bandé Dessinée (or comics, in French) is co-sponsored by the French PhD Program at the CUNY Graduate Center, PEN America, and the French Cultural Services (of the French Embassy). The panelists discuss the genre of the graphic novel, and the work of being cartoonists. At the end of their talk, panelists answer questions from the audience. One audience member to speak is famed cartoonist Jules Feiffer.
The third in a series of New French Writers in New York panelists discuss the current influence, and lack thereof, of French culture and literature on American literature and vice-a-versa. Why did French literature disappear? And what is the new French novel like? Moderated by Jerome Charyn.
The talk, co-sponsored by Columbia University, features film critics and film makers discussing the field of film criticism. Panelists include Andrew Sarris, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Peter W. Kaplan.
The panelists individually share their opinions on dance journalism/ criticism, and then engage in a group discussion on the topic. Panelists include Selma Jeanne Cohen, Deborah Jowitt, and Erick Hawkins.
Margery Cuyler (editor in chief of Holiday House Books) acts as the moderator of the event which features authors and illustrators of children's picture books. Panelists discuss their process to making work, how they collaborate with other people in their field, and what their professional trajectories are. Panelists include Steven Kroll, Anita Lobel, Emily Arnold McCully, Richard Egielski, Arthur Yorinks, and MB Goffstein.
Robert Cowley, son of Malcolm Cowley, talks about himself in relation with his father's autobiographical writings; Malcolm Cowley then speaks about memoir as a genre, his own memoir as an example of such, and writing the personal narrative.
Journalist Oriana Fallaci discusses her book, "A Man," about Greek politician Alexandros Panagoulis, who was imprisoned and tortured-- and finally, after being released, died in mysterious circumstances-- for attempting to assassinate the dictator Georgios Papadopoulos. Panagoulis was also her lover, and Fallaci discusses how she used real events from their lives in the book and why she nevertheless calls it a novel. She also describes in compelling terms Panagoulis's heroism and its costs, saying at one point "I saw in him the solitude of all those who refuse to bend to society."
Joseph Brodsky, Les Murray, Richard Howard, and Derek Walcott discuss the poetry of the Australian poet, Les Murray, and the linguistic context of it.
In a conversation with Sharon Olds, Shu Ting, the Chinese poet, talks about her poetry. Allen Ginsberg introduces the event.
The moderator, book critic Carlin Romano, engages a panel of writers on questions like whether there is a New York School of fiction writing with certain common features like a minimalist style and a tendency to emphasize everyday detail over traditional fictional apparatus like elaborate plots and moral conflicts; what influence so-called "nightclub fiction," like the novels of Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, has on their work; and whether the publishing house you're published by matters (all the writers on the panel are published by Knopf). Amy Hempel, David Leavitt, Mona Simpson, and Deborah Eisenberg, in general, emphasize their deliberate, willed independence from and indifference to "schools", commercial forces, and famous colophons, and discuss instead their individual choices, particularly regarding questions of language and style.
During this event, authors take turns reading books, many illustrated, to an audience of children and adults. Judy Blume reads a chapter from "Just As Long As We're Together." Myron Levoy reads a chapter from "Witch of Fourth Street." Paula Danziger reads from "The Cat Ate My Gymsuit." Walter Dean Myers reads from "Motown and Didi."
Authors and their editors are panelists in this event. They share how they started working together, how they paced their meetings with each other, and the expectations one has of the other in the professional dynamic. The program is co-sponsored by the Association of American Publishers.
Prompts the four panelists of this event are given include: what book had the greatest impact on you as a child? How did you become an avid reader? Authors share their personal stories from childhood, and specific tales that shaped them as authors. Panelists hail from Brooklyn, Poland, North Carolina, and Vienna, Austria. Audience members are encouraged to write down their questions, and panelists answer them at the end of the event.
This is the third event in the series "Literature and Revolution." As in the first event, Anthony Burgess, Francine du Plessix Gray, Jerzy Kosinski, and Anne Fremantle consider the question of whether a writer can be uncommitted, politically. They discuss the lives and works of many authors and how they bear upon this question, drawing comparisons between both contemporary and historical writers.
What is a canonical work of art and who decides this? How canons are read today and what works are excluded from canons and by whom? Whose canon is it anyway? Addressing these questions, Edward Said, David Bromwich, Catharine R. Stimpson, Arnold Rampersad, and Camille Paglia discuss the notion of canon in literature and culture. Morris Dickstein is the moderator.
As a part of PEN America's ongoing series of conversations with distinguished foreign authors, Nina Cassian and Stanley Kunitz cover many topics such as differences between Romanian and American poetry and cultures, as well as a poet's shifting styles. Cassian also reads her some of her poems.
In this short statement, Ernesto Cardenal—who was, at the time, the Nicaraguan Minister of Culture—discusses the Reagan administration's embargo against Nicaragua, and, despite this, the enduring cultural and literary ties between the United States and Nicaragua, describing particularly how widely American poetry is known and taught throughout the country. Cardenal speaks in Spanish, and his remarks are translated. Cardenal is introduced by PEN President Norman Mailer.
In welcoming members to the 1986 season of PEN America, Hortense Calisher gives general statements and touches on the aim of the Center.
During this reading British poets Danny Abse, Patricia Beer, Gavin Ewart, and Craig Raine read from other notable U.K. poets such as Philip Larkin ("The Old Fools "), John Ormond, Vernon Scannell ("Walking Wounded"), and D.J. Enright ("Paradise Illustrated").
Held in St. Peter's Church in NYC, Brooks reads from a selection of her poems, and gives background on the inspiration for many of her works. "To the Young Who Want to Die," "The Lovers of the Poor," and "We Real Cool" are featured.
Panelists Nina King, Rebecca Sinkler, James Wolcott, and Sven Birkerts talk about the "purposes, process and principles of book reviewing." The event is co-sponsored by the Association of American Publishers.
This gathering is part of week-long, nation-wide events celebrating writers, books, and reading. It is supported by the Association of American Publishers and PEN, and the National Book Foundation. The AAP Director of Trade Divisions, Roberta Plutzik, gives opening remarks. The event features panelists giving remarks on different aspects of book-to-movie adaptations, with a screenings of the movie clips each speaker is discussing. Later, there is a panel discussion. Janet Maslin is the moderator. The panel is comprised of A.E. Hotchner, Susan Isaacs, Barbara S. Maltby, Ronald Maxwell, Richard Price, Paul Schrader, Joan Micklin Silver, Paul Theroux, and Rafael Yglesias.
British poets Gavin Ewart and Craig Raine read from their work, including "The Animals in the Adelaide Zoo" and "Listen with Mother," respectively.
This event was organized by NYU's Poetics Institute and PEN America; Eileen Ward and Richard Howard are moderators. Four of the leading poets from England, Wales, and Scotland read their own work and the works of other U.K. poets. They also participate in discussion with one another on topics such as if there is a British prejudice against American poetry, as well as the genre of feminist poetry. The participating poets are Dannie Abse, Gavin Ewart, Craig Raine, and Patricia Beer.
Notable Brazilian writers Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, Hortense Calisher, Evan Angelo, and Lygia Fagundes Telles read from their work. Following the reading, there is a brief performance of Brazilian music.
For this event, a group of 7th and 8th graders from three New York City schools form a "school board" debating a theoretical challenge to a real book, "Naomi in the Middle" by Naomi Klein, that contains material about sexuality. They hear presentations from six adults—a teacher, a parent, a librarian, an editor, a writer, and a professional advocate—on the issue, present questions to them, and come to a decision. Robert Lipsyte moderates, and Betty Miles reads some of the offending passages.
This event is in conjunction with a program where PEN sends authors to areas of the U.S. where First Amendment questions are cropping up, and/or where conservative groups are trying to ban books. Roy Blount Jr. shares his view on the importance of the First Amendment, specifically in regards to the issue of book banning.
Polish poets Julia Hartwig and Artur Miedzyrecki read their poems to the audience. The poets are introduced by Allen Ginsberg. The event overall is introduced by Bob Rosenthal, from The Committee of International Poetry.
Bingham discusses being a writer of non-fiction as a woman, the respect given to different literary genres, women of privilege versus those of other classes, and the perception of women in society.
The event, as titled, revolves around the state of American avant-garde poetry—how the movement of avant-garde poetry slides into the tradition of formalism, or, more specifically why avant-garde poetry is given up for formalism. What is the relation of the individual to the social, and how does this relationship develop within English language writing and the field of poetics. Among others, a discussion on the nature of “American” poetry and the use of the English language as a cultural identity of a geographic entity and the falsity of such an assumption. Panelist include Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, and Hugh Kenner.
Elizabeth Miles introduces the panel. Steven Kroll, Carol Snyder, Bruce Degen, Richard Egielski, Dorothy Briley, and Eva Weiss discuss the relationship between text and illustration in children's books. Carol Snyder is the moderator.
Naylor and Aidoo talk to each other about topics varying from being female authors, language constraints, and how their education impacted their work. Aidoo also reads excerpts from her work.
The panel is comprised of two autobiographers, a novelist, and a biographer, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as the moderator and contributor to the talks. The focus of the program, as Gates, Jr says in his opening remarks, is to, "Explore the wonders and ironies of the black tradition in autobiography." Claude Brown, Arnold Rampersad, Itabari Njeri, and Sarah E. Wright read excerpts of their work, and/or the works of other authors who have influenced them.
In a press conference at the International Congress of PEN in Korea, Susan Sontag calls public attention to the fact that although there has been progress in Korea in terms of authors's rights and freedom of expression, there is a lot more work to be done.
This press conference was held the evening before Amiri Baraka was to go to jail for "resisting arrest" in an encounter with police in June 1979. Writers and artists give statements in support of Baraka, and finally Baraka himself speaks, discussing his case as part of a history of harassment of black artists and as part of a move to the right capped off by the election of Ronald Reagan. "There's never been democracy or justice for African-Americans in this country," he says. The conference concludes with questions from the press corps.
In this recording, Arthur Miller reports on a trip that he and William Styron made in early June 1988 to Chile and takes questions from the press. Miller discusses, among other topics, the enthusiastic reception they received from students and young people, the upcoming election (which removed Pinochet from the presidency) after seventeen years of dictatorship, and his and Styron's meetings with journalists, writers, students, and the families of the "disappeared."
William H. Gass, Jayne Anne Phillips, Brent Staples, and Robert Stone discuss violence in reality and imaginations of the Americans, how history, culture, language, and literature shape and represent violence and make it banal. Sean Wilentz is the moderator and Robert B. Silvers introduces the panelists.
On the first day of a ten-day visit, a group of Soviet writers meets with American journalists and answers questions about, among other topics, Joseph Brodsky's Nobel Prize, the Soviet Writers Union, the economic conditions for writers and translators in the US versus the USSR, and how the policy of glasnost was affecting writing and publishing in their country. This is the first trip to the United States for Victor Golishev, the translator of many major American writers, including William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and J.D. Salinger, and Golishev gives his first impression. The writers speak in Russian, and Coulter interprets for them.
A panel of Hungarian writers and activists—including László Rajk Jr., Ferenc Kósik, and György Krassó—discuss the current situation in Hungary, including the implications of a new press law and recent crackdowns on samizdat publications and public demonstrations. Karen Kennerly and E. L. Doctorow also deliver brief remarks, with Doctorow talking particularly about his trip to Budapest the previous year.
This press conference was held to publicize and entertain questions about the upcoming PEN Congress (the 1986 Congress). Norman Mailer discusses his aims for the Congress, and both he and Karen Kennerly answer questions about financing, programming, and most especially about which invited foreign writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, might not be able to attend because of the McCarran-Walter Act, which barred individuals suspected of "subversive activities" from visiting the country.
In this event, individuals from across the political spectrum discuss recent developments in American politics, in particular the sense of a return to McCarthyism, the use and effect of disinformation in the political process, and the creation of a new Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, formed by Senator Strom Thurmond and chaired by Jeremiah Denton. The participants include Victor Navasky, publisher of "The Nation" magazine; Marcus Raskin, founder of the Institute for Policy Studies; Midge Decter, political columnist; and Arthur Miller, who discusses his own experience before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the '50s. During the Q&A, a number of important people make statements, among them Bill Schaap (founder of CovertAction Quarterly), radical lawyer William Kunstler, Michael Ratner (President of the Center for Constitutional Rights), and Sylvia Crane, who was a member of a group that fought to abolish HUAC.
In this event, three panelists read from various works that pertain to Black History Month. David Bradley reads excerpts from the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Vincent Harding, Frederick Douglass, to name a few. Gloria Foster reads part of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man. Michael Harper reads from the poems of Robert Hayden. Wesley Brown is the moderator.
Gerald Howard introduces two panels on the topic of the book business. On the first panel, Gerald Howard, Maureen Howard, Virginia Barber, Harold Evans, Michael Jacobs, Phillip Lopate, and Marian Wood discuss the book business and how big and small publishing houses deal with the works of various authors. Maureen Howard is the moderator. On the second panel, with Gay Talese as the moderator, three publishers, namely, Anne Messitte, Robert B. Wyatt, and Wendy Strothman, share their own perspectives and respond to the issues that were mentioned on the first panel.
This festival of Latin American literature starts with a reading session in which Ana Castillo reads a short story from her book, Loverboys, and Martin Espada reads some of his poems. The event is followed by a panel discussion on Latino writers in the publishing community, in which Francisco Goldman, Demetria Martinez, Jack Agüeros, Sandra María Esteves, and Dagoberto Gilb discuss the obstacles of Latino writings in the mainstream publishing and small press publishing and the challengers that Latino writers encounter.
Francisco Goldman reads excerpts from his novel The Ordinary Seaman, Dagoberto Gilb reads a story from his collection, The Magic of Blood. Then a panel discussion followes with Latino writers, Francisco Goldman, Dagoberto Gilb, Ana Castillo, Victor Hernández Cruz, Dolores Prida, Rubén Martínez, Loida Maritza Pérez, and Junot Díaz, discussing the history of three decades of Latin American literature and journalism in the U.S., their experience with the publishing industry, the Latino identity, language, and community.
This event, organized by PEN's Children's Book Authors Committee, is titled The Power of Fear in Books for Children and Young Adults. Eden Ross Lipson acts as the moderator. Authors in this event discuss types of fear that they have featured in their books. Peel refers to "safe fear", such as monsters and vampires, found in his books. Tamar and Cormier each talk about their books, and the a more real world fear that is present—like the breaking of basic social contracts, physical harm, and betrayals. Wiesner discusses the challenge of showing fear visually in his illustrations in his books. Ellen Loreto, a head librarian from Queens, explains why young adult and children books that depict fear are important. The panelists are also asked about when they recall feeling fear as a child, and how they mastered it.
During this panel, writers and activists Annie Cohen-Solal and Aicha Lemsine discuss human rights issues in Algeria during wartime (particularly toward women), religious tensions there, censorship that takes place in the country, and their differing personal backgrounds. Cohen-Solal lived in France from a young age as she was part of the Jewish diaspora that left Algeria. She reads an excerpt from one of her pieces during the talk. Lemsine lived in Algeria for the better part of her life as a Muslim. In addition, she is Vice President of Women's World Organization for Rights Literature and Development. Organized by the International PEN Womens Writer's Committee.
This annual event explores first amendment issues that have been fractious in the past year. The format of the talk is one in which the moderator proposes hypothetical scenarios to the panelists based on real life cases. Panelists share their views on free speech by discussing decisions they would make in the proposed scenarios. As the moderator Nadine Strossen notes, the focus of this panel is free speech topics on "crime and violence," with particular leanings in the topics that pertain to writers. Panelists include Grace Paley, Bruce Fein, Robert Stone, Barney Frank, Stephen L. Carter, Lesley Stahl, and Gay Talese.
This panel discussion about whether writers have a political responsibility outside of writing brings together a group of authors with distinctly different life experiences and opinions on the subject, from the South African poet Breyten Breytenbach, who had been imprisoned for a number of years in South Africa on trumped-up treason and terrorism charges, to Tatyana Tolstoya, the novelist, short story writer, and acerbic critic of contemporary Russian life, to Stanley Crouch, the American jazz critic, novelist, and essayist. But because the event is being held in the spring of 1994, a great deal of the focus of the evening is on the Bosnian war and the siege of Sarajevo, which David Rieff (another panel member) had experienced directly and had been writing about for a number of years. Rieff expresses profound pessimism about the ability of writing to affect world affairs, saying that at the start of the conflict, he and other journalists believed that if the truth of what was going on there was effectively conveyed to the outside world, it would be stopped—which wasn't the case. Other matter raised include the history of writers and artists who have served terrible causes, the relation of writing to reality, and the racial politics of reporting on Bosnia versus other conflicts like the civil wars underway in Somalia or Afghanistan.
This annual event explores first amendment issues that have been fractious in the past year. The theme of last year's talk (titled Freedom to Write) was how government funding of the arts can color free expression. Issues pertaining to political correctness and hate speech are addressed in this event. Kathleen Sullivan returns as the moderator, a role she undertook in the Freedom to Write panel. Framing the dialogue like last year's, Sullivan starts by proposing to panelists a hypothetical utopian society in which first amendment rights are being tested, this time with a new textbook that supports all races/genders/religions/sexual lifestyles. Panelists share their views on free expression by discussing decisions they would make in either supporting or opposing the book, and why they would do so.
Children's books' authors and translators Fran Manushkin, Emily Arnold McCully, James Giblin, Walter Dean Myers, and Paula Fox talk about their inspirations and where they get their ideas from.
Peter Glassgold, Talât Sait Halman, Ritva Poom, and Robert Fagles read from their translation in progress from Latin, Turkish, Estonian, Finnish, and Greek into English.
Virginia Barber, Barbara Grossman, Daniel Halpern, Ted Solotaroff, and James Wolcott discuss creative writing programs across the country, and how they affect writing and writers. The panel is moderated by Gerald Howard.
Pam Conrad, Virginia Hamilton, Johanna Hurwitz, Jon Scieszka, Vera Williams, and Laurence Yep talk about the values they have been brought up with, and those that they write about or leave out in their writings for children. Elizabeth Levy is the moderator and the panel is introduced by Steven Kroll.
The central theme of the event is visions of the city in fiction through the lens of the four panelists: Richard Price, Maureen Howard, Jonathan Franzen, and Doris Jean Austin. Topics addressed by the panel include - What can a novel tell us about a city, and what, in turn, can a city do to writers of novels? Does writing about a city force a writer to be more concerned about larger ideas regarding society? What is the literary tradition for an American author writing about place? Howard observes that in her novels the city is equal to the characters. Price discusses approaching writing about the city in various ways—as metaphor, or with nostalgia. Franzen notes his interest in what makes a city function. Austen touches on the discomfort of leaving the city to visit a rural or suburban area.
The central theme of the event is women's writing in the future. Each panelist—including Marina Budhos, Katha Pollitt, Kate Rushin, and Grace Paley—discusses her view on the subject. In the opening comments, a distinction is made that women's writing is not a separate genre.
The event explores first amendment issues that have been fractious in the past year. Moderator Kathleen Sullivan starts the discussion by proposing to panelists a hypothetical utopian society in which first amendment rights are being tested in a fraught college setting. Panel members, including Arthur Miller and Morely Safer, share their views on free expression by discussing decisions they would make in the hypothetical society. A main theme throughout the talk is how government funding of the arts can color free expression.
Paula Giddings, Toni Morrison, Arnold Rampersad, Hazel Carby, John Edgar Wideman, and Cornel West discuss the challenges, exaltations, perspectives and narratives of writing in a society where race has been ideologized, culturally polarized, historically examined, and the influences of technology. Moderated by Arnold Rampersad.
The motivation for the panel "Nationalism in Eastern Central Europe: The Writer's Dilemma" was largely due to "the new political situation in Eastern Europe and Russia", as the moderator notes. Cultural identity is a central theme of the discussion. Also, the different sense of responsibility writers in this part of the world have toward their country and society. Additionally, if a writers search for identity parallels a nations search for identity is debated. A further point explored by panelists is, "whether the recent fall of communism has left a vacuum, and what is going to occupy that vacuum?" Panelists include Slavenka Drakulic, György Konrád, Czeslaw Milosz , Tatyana Tolstaya, and Adam Zagajewski.
Ammiel Alcalay, Sarah Arvio, Janine Beichman, Mirra Ginsburg, and Gregory Rabassa read from their translations in progress. These translations were from Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Hebrew into English.
The sixth annual PEN-AAP symposium is titled "Making It In The Mainstream: Writers Who Reached a Larger Audience, and How They Did It." Five writers and their publishers/editors discuss the elements involved in creating a successful book that is widely read. The symposium was in celebration of National Book Week. Panelists include Terry McMillan, Michael Jacobs, P.J O'Rourke, Morgan Entrekin, Mary Higgins Clark, Jack McKeown, Dominick Dunne, Betty A. Prashker, Anne River Siddons, and Lawrence Ashmead. Moderated by Charles E. Hayward. Co-sponsored with the Association of American Publishers.
This is the second of a multi-part event on feminism over the last 30 years and its influence on women writers. The series was organized to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the PEN Women Writers' Committee. The theme of this symposium is "taboos," and, as the moderator notes, striking them down, and striking back. A writer's relationship to taboos, the divisions of feminists, and living inside taboos are discussed by the various speakers. Sharon Olds reads two of her poems - "When It Comes" and "Once."
What does Gary Snyder Fear Most?
Find out in this recording taken from Nature Dead, Nature Alive (1991)
The many forms of free expression exist beyond the reaches of our own fingertips, extending to biology, diversity, environmental habitats and the Earth-Community in all of its parts.
Brent Staples, author and editorial writer for the New York Times, articulates the nature of violence and its trickle-down relationship to the iconography and mythology associated with our most informative and ubiquitous environments. This ubiquity, he proposes, lends to a “banality of violence” that enters into our persistent human interactions, sublimated into our daily elocutions and vernacular whether between strangers or intimates.
Violence, Imagination and Myth in America 09-14-1995
Russell Freedman, Ruth Belov Gross, Susan Kuklin, Ellen Levine, and Miriam Schlein talk about their approaches to writing non-fiction for children. They discuss the visual aspects of non-fiction books such as photographs, the language and content, and how they include certain aspects of their subjects and topics. The panel is moderated by Eva Moore and is introduced by Steven Kroll.
Mindi Dickstein, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Charlie Schulman read excerpts from each of their plays, and then discuss various topics in the field such as the paths they took to becoming playwrights, and why they became playwrights.
A reading and panel discussion with Mary Morris, Grace Paley, and Joseph Brodsky, and their translators, Nina Baht and Maria Kan, and Victor Golyshev about translating English literary works into Russian.
An event with translators, Robert Fagles, Richard Howard, and Donald Keene, who discuss translating and translations from classical Greek, Japanese, and French into English.
The subject of the event, a National Book Week symposium, is "The Coming Revolution in American Bookselling." The symposium is sponsored by Association of American Publishers and PEN, with major support from the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund. Panelists discuss a variety of topics such as how "computerization and new marketing techniques" will change the course of bookselling for all involved in the field—including publishers, consumers, independent bookstores, and chain bookstores. Speakers include A. David Schwartz, president of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops (in Milwaukee); Ann E. Dilworth, President of Addison Wesley Publishing Co.; Jack Hoeft, President of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group; Jack McKeown, Publisher of S &S Brenda Marsh, Vice President of Sales and Marketing Development at HarperCollins; Joyce Meskis, President of the American Booksellers Association and owner of the Tattered Cover Bookstore (in Denver); Larry McMurtry, president of PEN America; and Norman Mailer, former President of PEN America. At the beginning of the symposium, the moderator directs questions to specific speakers who work in publishing or bookselling. For example, the moderator asks Hoeft if, due to current industry issues with the re-order business, publishers will ultimately have to abandon direct order fulfillment to small bookstores. Later, the authors (Norman Mailer and Larry McMurtry) are asked to weigh in.