Submission for PEN's 2012 awards is now open. PEN's awards program is one of the richest and most comprehensive in the country. Prizes include those for debut fiction, biography, science writing, sports writing, among other categories, as well as numerous career awards. You can find a complete list of PEN awards offered in 2012 here. 

Prior to a unanimous vote by PEN’s Board of Trustees on June 15, most authors were required to have published two books to join PEN. PEN’s by-laws have now been amended to allow writers to apply for membership after the publication of their first book. Playwrights and screenwriters may join after producing one work in a professional setting. Others in the literary community who have achieved recognition in the field—e.g., publishers, editors, literary agents, scouts, and publicists—may also apply to become members of PEN. [More]

Pen is saddened by the loss of longtime member Ellen Currie, who passed away in early  January at University Medical Center, following a massive stroke. She was 81. Currie was known for hilarious and heartbreaking portrayals of Irish-American life in her novel, Available Light, and short story collection, Moses Supposes, which was a National Book Award Finalist in 1994. [More]

PEN Northwest Presents:  Oregon: Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency. An opportunity for a writer, or pair of writers,  to work in the solitude of backcountry Oregon. 

[More]

NBCC Honors PEN with Lifetime Achievement Award

The Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award recognizes long-standing and outstanding dedication to book culture. [More]

Special thanks to our Members who showed their support at the rally for Liu Xiaobo. Have comments or photos from the event? Please post them in the comments section here.

Want to stage a rally in your own city? You can find relevant materials here.

Please contact us for more details.

New York Metropolitan Area

1/7/12 Reading: Nahid Rachlin: Persian Girls

1/24/12 (Spring semester class): Teaching: Nahid Rachlin at New School for Advanced Fiction Workshop

Franny Billingsley named a 2011 National Book Award Finalist for Chime

Carmela Ciuraru awarded a 2011 Fellowship in Nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)

Yerra Sugarman awarded 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

•Mary Mackey:

Sugar Zone

•Allan Graubard:

Invisible Heads: Surrealists in North America -- An Untold Story

•Martha Southgate:

The Taste of Salt

•Jeffrey Eugenides:

The Marriage Plot

•Jennifer Egan:

A Visit from the Goon Squad

•Chuck Palahniuk:

Damned

•Stacy Schiff:

Cleopatra: A Life

•Ann Patchett:

State of Wonder

•Elissa Schappell:

Blueprints for Building Better Girls

•David Hellerstein:

Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go From Better to Well

•Leora Skolkin-Smith:

Hystera

•Carmela Ciuraru:

Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

•Pesi Dinnerstein:

A Cluttered Life: Searching for God, Serenity, and My Missing Keys

• Yuliana Kim-Grant:

A Shred of Hope

• Allan Graubard:

And tell tulip the summer

• Catherine Cauvin-Higgins:

Farewell

• Albert Russo and Martin Tucker:

Boundaries of Exile/Conditions of Hope

• Geoffrey Philp:

Who's Your Daddy? And Other Stories

• Steven G. Kellman:

M. E. Ravage's An American in the Making

• Fran Manushkin:

The Tushy Book

• Mumia Abu-Jamal:

Jailhouse Lawyers 

• Thomas Bass:

The Spy Who Loved Us

• Harvey Jacobs:

Side Effects

• Jane Lyn Stahl:

Riding with Destiny

• Elizabeth Levy:

Danger and Diamonds

• Sean Wilentz:

Bob Dylan in America

[More]

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