Scott McCloud
Scott McCloud
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Blog
Ebony Flowers
Ebony Flowers
Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang
Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez
Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez
The Topeka School
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
Sing to It
Sing to It by Amy Hempel
The Bird King
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
A People’s History of Heaven
A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian
Patsy
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart
Min Jin Lee
Min Jin Lee
INTERSECTIONS
DATE | February 9, 2021 at 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
Intersections featured authors who have engaged with intersectional identities in their work. We were joined by novelists Tope Folarin, Min Jin Lee, and Douglas Stuart, as well as moderator and book critic Bethanne Patrick, for a complicated and challenging discussion of intersectionality in literature.
NOW AVAILABLE: The event recording and transcript.
LeVar Burton Is Our Inaugural PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion
We are excited to announce that LeVar Burton, award-winning actor and longtime host of Reading Rainbow, has been named the inaugural PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. Launched in conjunction with the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s 40th Anniversary, this annual...
Announcing the Longlist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The longlist includes the following ten titles: Bestiary by K-Ming Chang (One World)Dear...
Ramunda Lark Young
Ramunda Lark Young
Russell Hornsby
Russell Hornsby
Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Reginald Dwayne Betts
DaMaris B. Hill, PhD
DaMaris B. Hill, PhD
Luis J. Rodriguez
Luis J. Rodriguez
Amber Sparks
Amber Sparks
Carmen Maria Machado
Carmen Maria Machado
Kelly Link
Kelly Link
Lesley Nneka Arimah
Lesley Nneka Arimah
Isaac Fitzgerald
Isaac Fitzgerald
Esmé Weijun Wang
Esmé Weijun Wang
Zack McDermott
Zack McDermott
Ofelia Montelongo
Writer in Residence
Claude Olson
Literary Education Programs Assistant
Brielle Perry
Literary Education Programs Assistant
Caroline Schreiber
Development Director
Sarah Silberman
Awards and Literary Programs Director
Gwydion Suilebhan
Executive Director
Lakita Wilson
Lisa Page Writing Workshops Fellow
Cristi Donoso Best
Writer in Residence
Faith Angel Campbell
Lisa Page Writing Workshops Fellow
Hugh Hunter
Writer in Residence
Lydia Davis
Winner of the 2020 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story Lydia Davis's ESSAYS ONE, her first nonfiction book, was published in 2019 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Lydia Davis is the author of VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE, which was a National Book Award...
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Board Chair
LeVar Burton
PEN/FAULKNER LITERARY CHAMPION
LeVar Burton is an actor, director, educator, and cofounder of the award-winning Skybrary app; former host and executive producer of PBS’s Reading Rainbow, and a lifelong children’s literacy advocate. He hosts his own podcast, LeVar Burton Reads, sharing the best short fiction and handpicked by the best voice in podcasting.
Willy Vlautin
Willy Vlautin
Richard Powers
Richard Powers
Ivelisse Rodriguez
Ivelisse Rodriguez
Blanche McCrary Boyd
Blanche McCrary Boyd
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
We Cast a Shadow
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
The Night Swimmers
The Night Swimmers by Peter Rock
Where Reasons End
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Ben Lerner
Ben Lerner
G. Willow Wilson
G. Willow Wilson
Mathangi Subramanian
Mathangi Subramanian
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award...
Peter Rock
Peter Rock is the author of ten works of fiction, most recently The Night Swimmers, SPELLS, Klickitat and The Shelter Cycle. The recipient of fellowships from Stanford University, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he currently...
Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li
Chloe Aridjis
Chloe Aridjis is a Mexican American writer who grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico. She is the author of three novels, Book of Clouds, which won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger in France, Asunder, set in London’s National Gallery, and Sea Monsters. Chloe...
Sea Monsters
Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis
Charles Finch
Charles Finch is the author of several nationally bestselling novels, among them The Inheritance (Minotaur, 2016) and The Last Enchantments (St. Martin’s, 2014). His criticism regularly appears in The New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, New York, The Guardian, and...
Bernice L. McFadden
Bernice L. McFadden
Alexi Zentner
Alexi Zentner
Jojo Ruf
First Vice President
Tope Folarin
Vice President
How Literary Characters Have Shaped My Life by Isabel Callahan
“I would say I most relate to Ross from Friends.” Laying on my mom’s studio carpet, phone pressed to my ear, I smiled in response to my friend’s observation. We were in the midst of a conversation about which TV show characters we relate to the most and, after...
4 Unexpected Lessons I Have Learned from Reading Novels by Melissa Young
I have been reading since I was two years old, and there are so many reasons that I fall in love with a book. Sometimes the way a sentence is written is so beautiful, I read it over and over to let it fill my soul with its magic. Sometimes the way a character is...
Mary Haft
Vice President
Willee Lewis
Vice President
Donna Hemans
Secretary
TWR with Aida Salazar: A Virtual Success
This fall, we were joined by wonderful interns who each wrote about an experience at an author visit that impacted them. We are thrilled to present this essay by Isabel Callahan and Melissa Young, our Literary Outreach/Education Programs interns. “So...
Voices from PEN/Faulkner Interns: Isabel Callahan
This fall, we were joined by wonderful interns who each wrote about an experience at an author visit that impacted them. We are delighted to present this essay by Isabel Callahan, one of our Literary Outreach/Education Programs interns. Visit Story – Patrice...
Voices from PEN/Faulkner Interns: Melissa Young
This fall, we were joined by wonderful interns who each wrote about an experience at an author visit that impacted them. We are delighted to present this essay by Melissa Young, one of our Literary Outreach/Education Programs interns. DC International School’s...
Thomas Lloyd
Treasurer
2020 PEN/Malamud Award Ceremony
DATE | December 4, 2020 at 7:30 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
The 2020 PEN/Malamud Award Ceremony celebrated Lydia Davis. This year’s event featured a reading, an in-depth conversation and a Q&A about Ms. Davis’ work, and remarks by Janna Malamud Smith, Bernard Malamud’s daughter. The cceremony was hosted in partnership with the MFA Program in Creative Writing at American University.
Our History
Celebrating literature, enriching our community The work of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation began in 1980, when National Book Award-winner Mary Lee Settle set out to create the largest annual peer-juried prize for fiction in the United States. The award was named for...
Why Literary Education Matters
As has been established by multiple research studies, books and reading have a profound impact on a child’s academic achievement and post-graduation employment success. A 2012 report by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution found that “over the past forty...
Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jenkins, Author
Nisi Shawl
Nisi Shawl, Author
Rion Amilcar Scott
Rion Amilcar Scott, Author
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, Author
ESCAPE
DATE | November 23, 2020 at 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
Literature provides the perfect opportunity to escape into new worlds in an attempt to cope with and understand all that happens in our own.
This riveting Literary Conversation featured Margaret Atwood, Rion Amilcar Scott, Nisi Shawl, and moderator Morgan Jerkins.
Elliot Ackerman
Board Member
Marie Arana
Board Member
Jabari Asim
Board Member
Louis Bayard
Board Member
Daniel Pink
Daniel Pink, Author
Stephen King
Stephen King, Author
Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue, Author
Lauren Beukes
Lauren Beukes, Author
Jackson R. Bryer
Board Member
Katherine Boone
Board Member
VIRUS
DATE | October 19, 2020 at 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the way we live our lives. It has also shown us our weak points and failures as a society.
This fascinating and especially relevant conversation featured literary powerhouses Stephen King (The Stand), Lauren Beukes (Afterland), and Emma Donoghue (The Pull of the Stars). They were joined by moderator and author Daniel H. Pink.
Molly Elkin
Board Member
Lauren Francis-Sharma
Board Member
Renée K. Gardner
Board Member
Caroline Kepnes
Caroline Kepnes, Author
Penn Badgley
Penn Badgley stars as Joe Goldberg in Netflix’s thriller series, "YOU," based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel of the same name. Badgley was last seen on the big screen in "Greetings" from Tim Buckley, for which he won the highly sought-after role to star as...
Chris Klimek
Chris Klimek, Journalist and Critic
Susan Ginsburg
Board Member
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