British writer, Virgina Woolf (1882-1941) 1902/public domain photograph by George Charles Beresfor
“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
PEN America released the longlists for its 2019 Literary Awards with 90 titles in the running for juried prizes honoring literary work including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation. Conferred by the country’s only organization that both celebrates literature and defends free expression, the PEN America Literary Awards honor literary excellence and celebrate voices that challenge, inform, and inspire. Prizes for debut fiction, international literature, science writing, sports writing, biography, essay writing and more will be awarded at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26, 2019 at the NYU Skirball Center in New York City.
The majority of the semi-finalists this year are women, including in categories long dominated by men, such as biography, where seven out of the 10 books longlisted are by women and six are about women. Longlisted works include: Zadie Smith’s Feel Free (Penguin Press); Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know; Jenny Xie’s Eye Level (Graywolf Press); Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black (Knopf); Jhumpa Lahiri for her translation of Domenico Starnone’s Trick (Europa Editions); Morgan Jerkins’ This Will Be My Undoing (Harper Perennial); Eliza Griswold’s Amity and Prosperity (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux); and many more.
In a period of time marked by nationalism and isolationism the PEN America Literary Awards continues its long-standing recognition of the finest writing in translation, with awards bestowed for both prose and poetry. This year, Sevinç Türkkan’s translation of Aslı Erdoğan’s The Stone Building and Other Places (City Lights) is longlisted at an especially poignant time, as Aslı Erdoğan awaits trial in Turkey and PEN America advocates for her release.
“With a record number of submissions to our Awards, including from small, medium, and large presses, the competition for this year’s awards is more intense than ever,” said Nadxieli Nieto, PEN America Literary Awards Program Director. “The renewed interest in literature and translation in this political moment is a testament to the power of readers and writers to advocate for new ideas, challenge the old ones, and propose new futures. Coming during a year when so many women have broken their silence to tell long-suppressed stories, our judges’ choices reflect the strength and breadth of women’s contributions across every category of literature.”
Finalists for the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards will be announced in January, and winners will be revealed at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26 at the NYU Skirball Center in New York. Announcements about finalists and winners of the following awards are forthcoming: the PEN/Jean Stein Book of the Year Award, PEN/Nabokov Award for International Literature, PEN/Osterweil Award for Poetry, PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, PEN/Pels Theater Award, PEN/Magid Award for Excellence in Editing, and the PEN/ ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award. Ticket sales for the Ceremony go on sale today and are available to the public here.
For over 50 years, the PEN America Literary Awards have honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature across such diverse fields as translation, fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, and drama. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN America will confer 22 distinct awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes in 2019, awarding more than $370,000 to writers and translators.
The full 2019 PEN America Literary Award longlists and more information about the Literary Awards program are available HERE.
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PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. This organization champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
Wednesday Writing Prompt will return on January 16, 2019.
What would you find pleasant or helpful on The Poet by Day in 2019? What have you found helpful to date? Link HERE to let me know.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1949)—Article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”
The repeated arrest of eleven Cuban artists, all of whom are active members of a campaign against Decree 349, a new law aimed at restricting independent art and culture, is an intolerable affront to free expression, says PEN America.
Artists Tania Bruguera, Iris Ruiz, Michel Matos and his wife Sandor Pérez Pita, Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, Amaury Pacheco Omni Poeta, Yanelys Nuñez Leyva, Veronica Perez Vega, Miguel Yasser Castellano, Javier Moreno, and Adonis Milan were arrested on December 3, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. Performance artist Tania Bruguera was briefly released yesterday. However, while on her way to the Cuban Culture Minister to ask for the freedom of artists and to discuss Decree 349, the police arrested her again with artist Javier Moreno. Bruguera shared a photo of herself wearing a ‘No Al Decreto 349’ (No to Decree 349) T-shirt on social media, saying she will go on a hunger and thirst strike with her fellow artists if she is detained again. Decree 349/2018, one of the first pieces of legislation signed by Miguel Diaz-Canel since he succeeded Raul Castro as president in April of this year, institutionalizes censorship of independent art and culture and establishes violations for artistic services that are not regulated and recognized by official cultural institutions in Cuba.
“This decree is an attack against artistic freedom and the arrest of these eleven artists, in addition of the many artists already behind bars like rappers Maykel and Pupito, is more than an individual attack on free expression,” said Julie Trébault, Director of the Artists at Risk Connection at PEN America. “This repression is not new, but represents a continuation of the Cuban Ministry of Culture’s policy to intimidate and censor critical and independent artistic voices.”
PEN America has also witnessed an alarming increase in arbitrary travel bans, detentions, and harassment of activists and artists by Cuban police officers leading up to December 7, when the decree will come into effect. Brief detentions are the standard response to opposition protests in Cuba, which considers dissidents to be mercenaries supported by the United States to subvert their own government.
Read more about Decree 349 and join the campaign here.
PEN America leads the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), a program dedicated to assisting imperiled artists and fortifying the field of organizations that support them. If you or someone you know is an artist at risk, contact ARC here.
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PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. The organization champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. pen.org
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Jamal Khashoggi,Saudi journalist, Global Opinions columnist for the Washington Post, and former editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel. Photo: Khashoggi offers remarks during POMED’s “Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look”. March 21, 2018, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Washington, DC. / Courtesy of April Brady / POMED – Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look under CC BY 2.0 license
“It was painful for me several years ago when several friends were arrested. I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family. I have made a different choice now. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison.” Jamal Khashoggi
Pen America announced last Friday that more than 100 writers, journalists, artists, and activists are calling on the United Nations to initiate an independent investigation into the disappearance and apparent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Marking a month since his disappearance and on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the writers and artists issued an open letter demanding that those responsible be brought to justice.
Literary and artistic luminaries and leading journalists, including J.K. Rowling, Bob Woodward, Meryl Streep, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, Arundhati Roy, Patrick Stewart, Chimamanda Adichie, Tom Stoppard, and Mario Vargas Llosa, have signed a letter calling on António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, to launch a thorough and independent investigation into the disappearance and apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi in order to uncover the truth and lay the groundwork for those responsible to be held accountable.
The letter reads: “The violent murder of a prominent journalist and commentator on foreign soil is a grave violation of human rights and a disturbing escalation of the crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, whose government in recent years has jailed numerous writers, journalists, human rights advocates, and lawyers in a sweeping assault on free expression and association. It is also yet another data point in a global trend that has seen an increasing number of journalists imprisoned and murdered for their work. As writers and journalists ourselves, we fear the potential chilling effect of this trend, at a moment when the work of all those who would speak and expose the truth has never been more important.”
The letter also cites the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, endorsed in 2012, which states that attacks on journalists “[deprive] society as a whole of their journalistic contribution and [result] in a wider impact on press freedom where a climate of intimidation and violence leads to self censorship.”
“The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was intended not just to silence one man, but to intimidate and suppress voices of dissent across borders,” said Summer Lopez, Senior Director of Free Expression Programs. “As such, it poses a threat not just to journalists, and not just to critics of the Saudi government, but to all those who would stand up for human rights and for the truth. China and Russia have already demonstrated a willingness to engage in extra-territorial and extra-judicial attacks on their critics; with Saudi Arabia joining that list, the threat to free expression globally is grave. In the face of such a vile and dangerous act, it is critical that the international community respond with fortitude and clarity in defense of journalists, and in defense of freedom of expression as a whole. The United Nations must lead that charge.”
Since Khashoggi’s disappearance, the Turkish government has repeatedly claimed to have evidence he was tortured, murdered, and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Although Saudi authorities denied any knowledge of his whereabouts for two weeks after his disappearance, they subsequently admitted he had been killed inside the consulate, but offered an implausible explanation, suggesting that an attempt to detain Khashoggi went awry. Turkey and Saudi Arabia both claim to be investigating the case.
Jamal Khashoggi began his journalism career as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette newspaper. Although once close to the inner circles of the Saudi royal family, he was gradually subjected to rigorous censorship by Saudi authorities. Concerned about his safety in Saudi Arabia following a crackdown on free expression that began in 2016 under the new Crown Prince, he went into self-imposed exile and moved to the United States in 2017. That September, he began reporting for the Washington Post as a columnist, where he continued to do so until his disappearance. On September 28, Khashoggi made his first trip to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to inquire about the acquisition of documents needed for his second marriage. He disappeared on October 2, after returning to the building based on instructions provided to him.
PEN America Washington Director Thomas O. Melia spoke at a memorial service for Jamal Khashoggi in Washington, D. C. on Friday, November 2. More information is available here.
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its stated mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. pen.org
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
PEN America announced that it is embarking on an ambitious expansion of its programming centered on bolstering defense of press freedom across the country. Writers, journalists, readers and other members of PEN America and their allies interested in defending press freedom, sparking informed debate, and elevating less-heard voices can apply for grants and support as part of the new PEN Across America initiative and its cornerstone Press Freedom Incentive Fund.
PEN Across America responds to mounting threats to a free press and other free expression rights that are the foundation of our democracy. As an organization working at the intersection of literature and free expression, PEN America and its over 7,000 members across the country have a vital role to play in deepening their communities’ understanding of the role of a robust media in empowered civic life and mobilizing to defend news outlets, journalism, and the very concept of an independent press.
The Press Freedom Incentive Fund, first opened in 2017 and already active with PEN America communities in more than 20 cities, is open again to will provide resources, research, and expertise for a vibrant array of press freedom actions, including incisive public forums on how responsible journalism is done to research on “news deserts” and campaigns for news literacy. These efforts are set in the enlarged PEN Across America initiative to bring the full range of PEN America’s literary events with prominent and emerging writers, provocative Conversations of Consequence, campaigns for writers under threat, an upcoming series celebrating censored and challenged works as part of Banned Books Week starting September 23, and other programming to more communities across the country.
“At a time when our shared values are being questioned and threatened, our Members and allies are rising to the challenge and engaging their local communities to defend the pillars of our democracy,” said Katie Zanecchia, PEN America National Outreach Program Director. “In a difficult, even directly hostile, landscape for press freedom, PEN America’s constituents are shaping the conversation in regions across the country and we’re proud to be able to offer support for their visions.”
In its pilot year starting in 2017, the Press Freedom Incentive Fund supported initiatives by members, writers, and activists in more than 20 cities and regions and across divisions of ideology and experience to galvanize communities ready to defend press freedom, helping to strengthen the national constituency behind this critical cause. Using grants from the fund coupled with research, expert speakers, and support from PEN America’s New York City headquarters and offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., long-standing and newly joined members are mobilizing to demand and defend an independent and robust press as a foundation of democracy.
“During the first year of the program, PEN America Members hosted discussions, organized public actions, forged partnerships with local media, and so much more,” said Rebecca Stump, PEN America Director of Membership. “Our Members are front and center of activism to defend free expression, and we can’t wait to see what next year’s roster of engaging, enthusiastic, and impactful activities will bring.”
This initiative is undertaken with the generous support of the Democracy Fund, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Compton Foundation. PEN America is currently accepting proposals for projects and activities scheduled between now and March 31, 2019. More information.Application. (Grants are from $1,000 – $4,000)
Thomas Jefferson 1786 by Mather Brown / public domain
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Thomas Jefferson
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. pen.org
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 