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PEN AMERICA CALLS FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RESCIND ITS MUZZLE ON FEDERAL EMPLOYESS

pen_american_center_official_logoYesterday,Tuesday, January 24, President Trump issued orders to several federal agencies to cease all communications with Congress, the press, and the public. PEN America decried the orders.

“This action is incompatible with American democratic values of government transparency and the public’s right to know,” PEN America statement

Multiple sources inside the government have told the press that the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services, ordered employees to cease external communications, including press releases, blog and social media posts and correspondence with other public officials.

Federal employees have expressed concern that the communications blackouts will impede work, disrupt communication across branches of the government and leave the public in the dark.

“Blanket orders from the Trump Administration preventing the staffs and experts of federal agencies from communicating with the public send a chilling message that every governmental communication, no matter how routine or technical, will now be subject to a political litmus test,” said Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of PEN America.

“Federal officials are being cut off from the American public, impairing their work and denying the American citizenry access to necessary information and understanding about the work of our federal government. These blunderbuss and draconian measures infringe upon free expression and the flow of information and ideas, imposing constraints that befit an autocracy, not American democracy. They should be rescinded immediately.” Suzanne Nossel

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. PEN champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. It’s mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

Public domain illustration.

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PLANS TO ABOLISH the U.S. National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities

Suzanne Nossel Executive Director, PEN America
Suzanne Nossel
Executive Director, PEN America

In response to news released on January 19 announcing that the Trump administration plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, PEN America Executive Director Suzanne Nossel released the following statement:

The Trump administration’s plans, reported in The Hill this morning, to abolish wholesale the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are an outrageous abdication of the U.S. government’s proud history of support for groundbreaking research and creative endeavors that have served as engines of innovation and bolstered America’s stature as a haven for free thinkers and a global leader in humanity’s shared quest for knowledge.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, founded in 1965, is a leading source of funding for humanities programs in the United States. Its grants support cultural institutions including museums, libraries, and public television, as well as universities and individual scholarship. It has supported over 7,000 book projects, including 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, and the United States Newspaper Project, cataloguing over 60 million pages of historic newspapers for future use by scholars.

The National Endowment for the Arts, also established in 1965, supports participation and scholarship in the arts, works to ensure equal access to arts and culture for all Americans, and partners with state and local leaders to support creative initiatives at the community level. Its funding supports literature, visual arts, dance, theater, museums, and arts education programs around the country

The announcement that this is even under consideration casts a sinister cloud over our vibrant national culture, stoking fears that the Trump Administration aims to usher in a new Dark Ages in America. U.S. leadership and innovation in arts, culture, and the humanities are wellsprings of American greatness and the envy of the world. This proposal sends shivers down the spine of all Americans who value research, scholarship, and creativity and who recognize the mortal blow that eliminating these vital agencies would strike at the heart of treasured sectors of our society. Even apart from the essential resources at stake, the signal sent by this gesture is a slap in the face to artists, writers, researchers, and scholars who are learning that the Administration seems to consider their work worthless.

-Suzanne Nossel
Executive Director, PEN America
January 19, 2017

Photo credit PEN America under CC BY SA 4.0 license

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.

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LATE-BREAKING NEWS: PEN America and Jean Stein to Honor Groundbreaking Literature with New Awards of $75K and $10K

PEN America Center (PEN), founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators. PEN America Center is the largest of the 144 centers that belong to PEN International, the worldwide association of writers that defends those who are harassed, imprisoned and killed for their views.[1] PEN America Center is one of two PEN centers located in the USA, the other is PEN Center USA in Los Angeles, it covers the USA west of the Mississippi.
PEN America Center (PEN), founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators. PEN America Center is the largest of the 144 centers that belong to PEN International, the worldwide association of writers that defends those who are harassed, imprisoned and killed for their views.PEN America Center is one of two PEN centers located in the USA, the other is PEN Center USA in Los Angeles, it covers the USA west of the Mississippi.
This week PEN America announced the establishment of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a literary honor that will be conferred annually on a book that has broken new ground and signals strong potential for lasting influence.

$75,000 Prize to be Awarded to a Single Writer for Originality and Impact
$10,000 Grant for a Literary Oral History Project

The new award will recognize a book-length work of any genre for “originality, merit, and impact,” spotlighting a work of literature that reshapes the boundaries of its form. Funded by oral historian Jean Stein, the $75,000 award will be among the largest literary prizes in the U.S., as well as the largest prize offered by PEN. In a departure for the PEN America Literary Awards, the judging panel of distinguished writers will serve anonymously. The panel will nominate candidates internally and without submissions from the public.

“The PEN/Jean Stein Book Award will focus global attention on remarkable books that propel experimentation, wit, strength, and the expression of wisdom,” said PEN America President Andrew Solomon. “As an organization that champions literature’s power to change the world, PEN America is especially pleased to recognize work that honors creative ambition and rejoices in imagination. We are immensely grateful to Jean Stein for this opportunity to celebrate books that rethink our culture and humanity.”

Stein’s own literary pursuits have engaged some of the most influential figures in American culture, including an interview with William Faulkner for The Paris Review in 1956. She chronicled the life of Robert F. Kennedy with editor George Plimpton in the 1970 book American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy. In 1982, she was the author of Edie: American Girl, which was also edited with Plimpton. Most recently, she profiled five prominent families from Los Angeles in West of Eden. From 1990 to 2004, Stein was the editor of Grand Street, a literary and visual arts magazine.

In addition to the book award, Stein will also sponsor a new PEN America Literary Award for oral history. The PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Oral History will award $10,000 to support the completion of a literary work of nonfiction that uses oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement.

The PEN America Literary Awards is the most comprehensive awards program in the country, offering prizes across a wide range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, theater, translation, and more. With the addition of these two new awards, the 2017 PEN America Literary Awards will confer over $250,000 to writers and translators.

Both new awards sponsored by Stein will be conferred for the first time in 2017, with the inaugural honorees to be named at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony in New York in February.

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