Last week PEN America announced the launch of the PEN/Edward Bunker Prize in Fiction. This to honor the legacy of the famed crime fiction author and screenwriter. The PEN/Bunker Prize will celebrate short works in fiction by writers who are currently incarcerated and will be presented for the first time as part of the PEN America’s 2019 Prison Writing Awards.
Public domain photograph of Edward Bunker taken at an unknown California prison.
EDWARD BUNKER, who became a prolific writer while incarcerated, leveraged the power of the writing process to reinvent himself into the iconic storyteller author and screenwriter we know today. Celebrated for conceiving some of the most gripping crime stories of our time, he penned numerous books, collaborated with celebrity A-listers like Quentin Tarantino and Danny Trejo, was a screenwriter on Straight Time (1978), Runaway Train (1985) and Animal Factory (2000), and acted alongside Hollywood elite in films such as The Running Man, Tango & Cash, and Reservoir Dogs. Thirteen years after his death, his legacy and the transformative power of writing continues through his family’s support of the PEN America Prison Writing Program.
In addition to a cash prize, each recipient will be paired with a writing mentor and given a clear Swintec typewriter—the only typewriter allowed in U.S. prisons, and the one used by Edward Bunker when he first began to write.
“Eddie Bunker’s inspirational legacy is threaded through the hundreds of submissions that pour into PEN America’s Prison Writing Awards each year,” said Caits Meissner, PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program manager. “Like Eddie, our writers use the written word to expose the painful aspects of incarceration, as well as offer up moments of triumphant humanity that shine light into dark spaces. Thirteen years after his passing, we’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to continue Eddie’s legacy of transformative writing with his family’s generous support of our program.”
“The Bunker prize is a perfect match for what PEN America is doing with the Prison and Justice Program—reaching out to prisoners who have turned to writing as a salvation, and hopefully a future. I wanted to bring hope and inspiration to those important voices out there that have value and need to be heard. And just as importantly, because our son, Brendan Bunker, sees this as one more way to keep his father and his work immortalized,” said Jennifer Steele, wife of Eddie Bunker.
PEN America’s Prison Writing Program, founded in 1971 in the wake of the Attica riots, advances the restorative, rehabilitative, and transformative possibilities of writing, and has offered many thousands of incarcerated writers free writing resources, skilled mentors, and audiences for their work. A hallmark of the program is the PEN America Prison Writing Awards, which recognizes works by incarcerated writers inpoetry, fiction, drama, nonfiction, and memoir.
The crowded living quarters of San Quentin Prison in California, in January 2006. As a result of overcrowding in the California state prison system, the United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its prison population (the second largest in the nation, after Texas). Public domain photograph
Every year hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to the Prison Writing Awards, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population.
This month, the first print anthology of award-winning works from the Prison Writing Awards will be published. And, yesterday, September 13, PEN America presented Break Out: Voices from the Inside at the Brooklyn Book Festival, featuring readings and artistic interpretations of works by incarcerated writers, staged by prominent authors on the outside. This is part of a series of events centered on mass incarceration and writers in prison. For more information visit the events calendar.
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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. It 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.
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.
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“When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.” Ai Weiwei (b. 1957, China)
PEN American announced this weekend that artist Ai Weiwei (Ai Weiwei’s blog,Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009) will receive the Artistic Expression Award at the organization’s 2018 LitFest Gala in Los Angeles. Ai is renowned for making bold aesthetic statements that expose fault lines, unmask hypocrisies, and unleash empathy on a global scale. This honor comes in the wake of the razing of Ai Weiwei’s Beijing studio, including the destruction of several artworks, purportedly to make way for gentrification.
Ai Weiwei – Forever, 2018, Artz Pedregal, Mexico City courtesy of Keizers under CC BY-SA 4.0
“Ai Weiwei’s inventive, iconic, and utterly original lens on contemporary life both within and outside China have bridged the worlds of art and activism, awakening millions to the plight of refugees, government corruption, and human suffering. His dramatic, insistent, and impossible-to-forget films, artworks, and installations have jolted the art world, inspired millions, and stoked fear in the minds of governments alert to the power of creativity to spark social change,” said PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel.
“Ai Weiwei has, for decades, endured the personal price of harassment, intimidation, and constraints on his freedom in his determination to speak out and be a voice for those who cannot. Coming without warning, the demolition of his studio last weekend was a vivid reminder of the arbitrary and unpredictable exercise of power that Ai’s work has consistently exposed and contested. PEN America has been proud to stand with Ai Weiwei in his courageous posture of artistic defiance, and is honored to present him with our Artistic Expression Award this year.”
From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai Weiwei uses a wide range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine society and its values.
Recent exhibitions include: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors with the Public Art Fund in New York City; Ai Weiwei on Porcelain at the Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul; Maybe, Maybe Not at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem; and Ai Weiwei. Libero at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. In the fall of 2018, Ai Weiwei will open three major exhibitions in Los Angeles.
Ai currently resides and works in Berlin. He is the current Einstein Visiting Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation. Ai’s first feature-length documentary, Human Flow, premiered at the 74th Venice Film Festival in competition.
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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. It 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.
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.”
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Oleg Gennadyevich Sentsov: Ukrainian filmmaker and writer, native of Crimea, best known for his 2011 film Gamer. Following the Russian annexation of Crimea he was arrested in Crimea and convicted to 20 years in jail by Russian court on charges of plotting terrorism acts. The conviction was widely described as fabricated or exaggerated. On 14 May 2018, he went on an open-ended hunger strike protesting the incarceration of 65 Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia and demanding their release. (Photo courtesy of Antonymon under CC BY-SA 4.0)
I am currently in the process of working up Sunday Announcements, which will post by end-of-day. Meanwhile, I share this encouraging news.
In response to the release by two United States Senators—Roger Wicker (R-MI) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)—of their letter to the U.S. president calling on him to urge Vladimir Putin to release unjustly imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleg Sentsov, PEN America Washington Director Thomas O. Melia issued the following statement:
“We are heartened by this bipartisan expression of support for the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, 2017 recipient of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write award. As Sentsov’s hunger strike goes into its 37th day, his health continues to deteriorate in his remote prison north of the Arctic Circle, where he is facing a twenty-year sentence on fabricated charges due to his peaceful opposition to the Russian annexation of his native region of Crimea. We urge President Trump to do as the senators request and call on President Putin to release Sentsov from jail immediately.”
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. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
On Friday PEN America launched its Online Harassment Field Manual, a first-of-its-kind resource to equip and empower writers, journalists, and all those active online with practical tools and tactics to defend against hateful speech and trolling.
Research with more than 230 writers revealed alarming findings that highlight the relevance of the Field Manual and the threat that online harassment poses for free speech: two-thirds of those trolled reported reactions including refraining from publishing their work, deleting social media accounts, and fears for personal safety; over a third avoided certain topics in their writing. Writers were targeted for their viewpoints, but also based on their race, gender, and sexual orientation. Those belonging to marginalized communities or speaking out on injustice faced more egregious forms of online hate.
PEN, Exc. Dir. Suzanne Nossel
“Online harassment poses a clear threat to free expression, as evidenced by the results of our survey,” said PEN America Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Nossel. “When certain voices are muzzled, when people choose not to write about topics that matter, and when they remove themselves from the public debate, everyone loses. As an organization of and for writers, PEN America is especially disturbed by the ways in which online harassment affects their work. Journalists and writers whose web presence is a professional imperative can’t be left defenseless in the face of rampant digital intimidation, provocation, and vitriol when they dare to stick their heads above the parapet.”
The Field Manual offers a one-stop bank of advice, guidance, and resources on cyber-stalking, doxing, hate speech, and other forms of digital vitriol, intended to fortify writers and journalists with the best available methods and means to protect themselves and secure their own freedom to write.
The Field Manual also offers recommendations directed to employers, tech companies, and law enforcement on the parts they need to play to prevent online harassment. While the content is geared toward writers, much of the advice and techniques are relevant to anyone confronting hostility online. Manual highlights include:
A number of first-hand accounts of online harassment and their aftermath
Step-by-step guides for enhancing cyber security and preventing doxing
An online harassment glossary with proposed responses
Ideas for leveraging online writing communities to combat online harassment
Tips for combating hate speech with counterspeech
Guidelines for allies and witnesses interested in intervening in online harassment
Best practices for employers of writers and journalists to improve institutional support during episodes of online abuse
Information about online harassment and the law
“In the digital age, all writers and publishers of online content are vulnerable and susceptible to web attacks,” said PEN America Journalism and Press Freedom Project Manager Laura Macomber. “Those facing online harassment must make an impossible decision: engage and put themselves at risk, or disconnect and miss out on important online discourse. Our goal is to equip writers and their allies—especially those whose livelihoods are at stake—with resources to push back against online hatred and harassment so they can continue to do their jobs.”
The Online Harassment Field Manual launched Saturday in New York City during a panel discussion on combating online hate, which is part of the PEN World Voices Festival. To continue the conversation, PEN America and the National Press Club Journalism Institute will host a panel about journalists fighting back against online harassment on April 27, the day before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in Washington, D.C.
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. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 