Each month notices of writers under threat come across my desk. I find myself studying the pictures of the writers when there are pictures, writing down their names, and when available, reading some of their work to make them real in my own mind and imagination and later to share their work, which governments hope to silence. Along with other members of PEN I write appeals on their behalf with no definitive measure of how effective these are, but over time the accumulation of protests from writers and others around the world does push open consciousness and prison doors.

In the past month, writers have been imprisoned with long sentences in China,...

Memory accelerates as I look at the wet London street through the window of Sticky Fingers restaurant.  For six years Sticky Fingers was our family gathering place and adopted kitchen. We lived nearby, and I would often claim a booth by the window where I ate lunch, spread out my papers and wrote through the afternoon.  At the end of the school day and sports practices and skateboarding excursions, my sons would appear and plop down on the other side of the booth and order burgers or fries or pecan pie, and we’d share our day then walk home together, often with a bit of takeout for dinner.

We lived in London during a time of shifting...