May 1 | CUNY Graduate Center | NYC

With Patricia Spears Jones, Wayne Koestenbaum, Amitava Kumar, Paul LaFarge, Jeffrey Lependorf, Colum McCann, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, and Anya Ulinich.

Franklin Roosevelt’s famous declaration about “fear itself” is being quoted more than ever, it seems. But how does a climate of fear affect the lives of writers—and the life of literature? The new issue of PEN’s award-winning journal, PEN America, examines these questions and many others. Please join us for a night of readings and conversation about the life of literature and the language of fear at moments of change and uncertainty.

Cosponsored by the Martin E. Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center, CUNY

PEN Blogs

• anderbo.com:
Yesterday's celebration of PEN America 10: Fear Itself opened with a series of readings from the journal. Then Jeffrey Lependorf began a conversation about the language of fear by asking about the participants' fears. [More]

• Shaun Randol:
What are you afraid of these days? Swine flu and Mexican drug cartels. Pirates. Terrorists. Unemployment. Salmonella poisoning. ID theft. Plane crashes. Failure. [More]