PEN America at The Big Umbrella Reading Series

Join PEN staff and new and longtime PEN Members for the June edition of The Big Umbrella Nonfiction Reading Series, featuring readings from three acclaimed writers: Jessica Gross, Phillip Lopate, and Jen Percy.

Free and open to the public.

There will be excellent nonfiction and $4 whiskey specials. 2A is located at the corner of Second St. and Avenue A, in the upstairs bar. Books will be for sale, courtesy of McNally Jackson. 

Nearest subways include the F at 2nd Avenue, the 6 at Bleecker, the BD at Grand or the JMZ at Essex.

Jessica Gross writes for The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. She holds a Master’s degree in cultural reporting and criticism from NYU, and her essay on train travel helped spark the Amtrak writers residency.

Phillip Lopate is the author of Against Joie De Vivre, Portrait of My Body, and Being with Children, among other books. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and his works have appeared in Best American Essays, The Paris Review, The New York Times, and many other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter, and teaches writing at Columbia University, where he directs the graduate nonfiction program.

Jen Percy is the author of the nonfiction book Demon Camp (Scribner) which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, Percy is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, an Iowa Arts Fellowship at the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, and a Truman Capote Fellowship at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The Oxford American, and The New Republic.