Elizabeth McCracken is the author of nine books of fiction and non-fiction. Her short stories have appeared multiple times in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and on NPR's Selected Shorts. Her most recent collection of short stories, The Souvenir...
Elizabeth McCracken has been selected as the winner of the 2026 PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Given since 1988, the award recognizes writers who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short story form. “Elizabeth...
Marie-Helene Bertino
Mat Johnson
Anne K. AaronElizabeth ShreveKatherine BoonePEN/Faulkner is thrilled to announce that Anne K. Aaron and Elizabeth Shreve have been elected to serve as Co-Presidents of the organization's Board of Directors after a tremendously successful two-year term of leadership by...
Padma Viswanathan
Blair Hurley is the author of The Devoted which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her second novel, Minor Prophets, was published in 2023. Her work is published in New England Review, Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Guernica,...
DK Nnuro is a Ghanaian-born writer. He is curator of special projects at the Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa and adjunct assistant professor in the English Department there. His debut novel, What Napoleon Could Not Do, was one of Barack Obama’s 2023...
Shubha Sunder is a 2025 Whiting Award winner and the author of Optional Practical Training, an immigrant novel in conversations that won the New American Voices Award and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her first book, Boomtown Girl, a...
Maria and her Magical Powers Erikah, 5th grade Hi! My name is Maria, my best friend Kate calls me Magical Maria because I have some powers that most people don’t have. I am also a really great dancer! On a random Wednesday I was in my all purple bedroom and I heard...
Mahreen Sohail’s Small Scale Sinners (A Public Space) has been selected as the winner of the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. “With sharp and striking prose, Small Scale Sinners performs the magical feat of encompassing every aspect of humanity in a slim volume of...
Virginia Evans’ The Correspondent (Crown) has been selected as the winner of the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. “Selecting one work of fiction from the many stellar submissions we received this year was a monumental task for which we owe a debt of gratitude...
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World) The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Heart the...
By Chloë LawrenceLisa Page Literary Education Fellow I drove to Dunbar High School after a snowstorm. Thick slabs of ice, like glaciers, hugged the roads of DC, turning two-way streets into one-way and causing road closures across the city. Cautiously optimistic, I...
Judges have selected the finalists for the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Crown) Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan (Pantheon) Blob by Maggie Su (Harper) “Whether it be through finely tuned voices, fresh takes on...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award FinalistAddie E. Citchens was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and lives in New Orleans. A graduate of Jackson State University, she studied in the Florida State University Creative Writing Program and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop....
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award Longlist A. Cosby is a New York Times bestselling writer from southeastern Virginia. He is the author of All the Sinners Bleed, which was on more than forty Best of the Year lists, including Barack Obama’s, as well as Edgar Award finalist...
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books) Brother Brontë by Fernando A. Flores (MCD) The Devil Is a Southpaw by...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award LonglistFernando A. Flores was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and grew up in South Texas. He is the author of the collections Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas and Valleyesque and the novel Tears of the Trufflepig, which was...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award LonglistBrandon Hobson is the author of the novel The Devil is a Southpaw as well as other books. His novel Where the Dead Sit Talking was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and is...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award FinalistQuiara Alegría Hudes is an American writer. Her work includes the Pulitzer Prize winning play Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award winning Broadway musical and major motion picture In the Heights, the animated film Vivo, and the essay...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award FinalistJonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award FinalistLily King is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize,...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award LonglistCarrie R. Moore is the author of Make Your Way Home, a story collection exploring Black love and longing in the American South. Her writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Oprah Daily, The Sewanee Review, American Short...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award LonglistEd Park is the author of the novels Personal Days and Same Bed Different Dreams. He is a founding editor of The Believer, and has worked in newspapers, book publishing, and academia. His writing appears in The New Yorker, The New York...
2026 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Mahreen Sohail was born in Islamabad, Pakistan. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar, and was a Writing Fellow at A Public Space and a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East...
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel: Trip by Amie Barrodale (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown (Henry Holt) The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Crown) The Devil Three...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award LonglistAmie Barrodale’s stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s Magazine, and other publications. In 2012 she was awarded The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction for her story “William Wei.” She is the author of...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award LonglistColwill Brown was born and raised in South Yorkshire, England, and is based in Austin, Texas, where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, and Fiction Editor at Bat City Review. For the last decade, she has lived...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award FinalistVirginia Evans attended James Madison University for her bachelor’s in English literature. After starting a family, she went back to school for her master’s of philosophy in creative writing at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award LonglistRickey Fayne is a fiction writer from rural West Tennessee whose work has appeared in the New York Times, American Short Fiction, Guernica, The Sewanee Review, and The Kenyon Review, among other magazines. He holds an MA in English...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award FinalistSusanna Kwan is an artist and writer from San Francisco. Her work has been supported by fellowships from Kundiman, Storyknife, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and Vanderbilt University. Awake in the Floating City is her first novel. She...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award LonglistEthan Rutherford’s fiction has appeared in BOMB, Tin House, Electric Literature, Ploughshares, One Story, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, and The Best American Short Stories. He is the author of two story collections—Farthest...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award FinalistMaggie Su is a writer and editor. She received a PhD in fiction from University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Indiana University. Her work has appeared in New England Review, Four Way Review, TriQuarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, Juked,...
2026 PEN/Hemingway Award LonglistKatie Yee is a writer from Brooklyn. She has received fellowships from the Center for Fiction, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and Kundiman. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books,...
By Janna Malamud Smith Some years ago when I was writing a memoir about my father, I read through the journals he had filled as a young man as he slowly taught himself to write. Practice sentences, paragraphs, poems, plot ideas filled the pages. He copied quotations...
Long-time PEN/Faulkner board member and supporter Willee Lewis has been selected as the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. This annual commendation recognizes a lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and...
Willee Lewis studied English literature and education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and taught English, writing, and drama in a number of settings, including ten years as a high school instructor at the Washington International School. During a four-decade...
PEN/Faulkner was lucky to be a Featured Organization at the 25th annual National Book Festival this year, and we had a terrific time greeting hundreds and hundreds of attendees at our booth. Book lovers of all ages took the opportunity to respond to the following...
Varun Gauri was born in India and raised in the American Midwest. After studying philosophy in college and public policy in graduate school, he worked for more than two decades on global poverty and human rights, publishing academic articles and books on development...
Nick Rees Gardner works as a beer and wine monger, book reviewer, and writing teacher in Washington, DC. His writing and criticism has appeared in Adroit Journal, BarrelHouse, Epiphany, and many other journals and his books include, So Marvelously Far, a collection of...
Timothy Janovsky is a queer, multidisciplinary storyteller based in DC. He is the USA Today bestselling author of The Merriest Misters, Never Been Kissed (Booklist starred review), You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince (AudioFile Earphones Award), and New Adult (2024 ALA...
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announces that David Means has been selected as the winner of the 2025 PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Given since 1988 in honor of the late Bernard Malamud, the award recognizes writers who have...
De'Shawn Charles Winslow is the author of Decent People, and In West Mills, which was a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, an American Book Award recipient, a Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction winner. It was a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book...
Samantha Hunt is the author of five books including The Seas, The Unwritten Book and The Dark Dark. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. Her writing has been translated into thirteen languages. Hunt won a Bard Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner. She teaches...
David Means is the author of six short-story collections, including Two Nurses, Smoking; Instructions for a Funeral; The Spot—a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Assorted Fire Events—winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and a finalist for the...
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is proud to announce that it has assumed the responsibility for administering the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Since 1976, the PEN/Hemingway Award has honored a debut novel of exceptional merit by an author who has not previously...
The Lisa Page Literary Education Fellowship Join the PEN/Faulkner staff and teach fiction in Washington, DC schools PEN/Faulkner is seeking a fiction writer with teaching experience for its Lisa Page Literary Education Fellowship. The Fellowship, which is named after...
Dionne Irving is originally from Mississauga, Ontario. She is the author of the novel Quint and the short story collection The Island. Her work has appeared in Electric Lit, Story, Boulevard, and LitHub, among other journals and magazines. The Islands was a finalist...
Rachel Beanland is the author of two novels, The House Is On Fire and Florence Adler Swims Forever. The House Is On Fire was selected as an Indie Next pick by the American Booksellers Association, a ‘GMA Buzz Pick’ by Good Morning America, a “most anticipated” book by...
Taymour Soomro is the author of the novel Other Names for Love (2022) and the co-editor of the essay collection Letters to a Writer of Color (2023). His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times. He has received fellowships from the Wisconsin...
By Maddy Kye, Lisa Page Literary Education Fellow Over the course of this academic year, I've been fortunate to serve as the Writer in Residence at two schools in DC: Brightwood Elementary and Center City PCS-Brightwood. The experience has been extremely rewarding,...
Garth Greenwell’s Small Rain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) has been selected as the winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. "We are deeply indebted to our panel of judges for dedicating themselves to the difficult task of selecting this year’s winner among an...
Patricia Griffith is a founding member of PEN/Faulkner and a former president of the Board. She is a novelist and playwright. Two of her stories were included in the O. Henry Prize Stories. Her story "Nights at O'Rear's," first published in Harper's, was made into a...
In celebration of PEN/Faulkner’s new partnership with New Hampshire Public Radio to produce the fourth season of Check This Out, Executive Director Gwydion Suilebhan sat down with host Rachel Barenbaum. You’re not only a podcaster, you’re a terrific writer. (We first...
Tracy majored in American Literature at Hofstra University in New York. She then earned her JD at the University of South Carolina and her LLM in Taxation at George Washington University. She was introduced to PEN/Faulkner through Molly Elkin, a partner in Tracy’s...
Rachel Barenbaum is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Atomic Anna and A Bend in the Stars. Atomic Anna was long listed for the Massachusetts Book Award, nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award, named an Honor Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries for...
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The finalists are Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda (W.W. Norton & Company), Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj...
By Maddy Kye, Lisa Page Literary Education Fellow When I entered the library of Phelps ACE High School, visiting author H.D. Hunter had his presentation for his novel, Something Like Right, set up on the screen, and the librarian, Mr. Strickland, was organizing pizza...
Interested in getting involved with Writers in Schools? Here are frequently asked questions. Who do we serve?We currently work with students in grades 3-12 in Washington, DC. At nearly all of our partner schools, the majority of students qualify for free and reduced...
2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Finalist ’Pemi Aguda is an MFA graduate from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her writing has been published in Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and other publications, and has been awarded the O. Henry...
2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistSusan Muaddi Darraj is the author of American Book Award–winner A Curious Land and was a finalist for a Palestine Book Award. A United States Artists’ Ford Fellow and past winner of the Maryland State Arts Council’s...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionLouise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in...
2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistPercival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker...
2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction WinnerGarth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, Cleanness, and Small Rain. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review, among other journals, and his nonfiction has appeared widely, including...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionRachel Kushner is the author of the New York Times bestseller Creation Lake, her latest novel; The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection; and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, The...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionRuben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants and the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Harvard College, his writing has appeared in The Boston Globe,...
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Ghostroots by ’Pemi Aguda (W. W. Norton & Company) Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (Harpervia) The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (Harper) James by Percival...
2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistDanzy Senna is the bestselling author of six previous books, including Caucasia, New People, and most recently Colored Television. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, she teaches writing at the University of...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionBen Shattuck is the author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, which was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of Spring, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionJohn Vercher lives in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He has a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in creative writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program....
Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden has been selected as the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. This annual commendation recognizes a lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers."Dr. Hayden is a...
Dr. Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Dr. Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library, was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama on February 24, 2016, and her...
Campus novels invite readers into worlds of manicured quads and ivory towers that may, at first, seem idyllic. But beneath the surface, these stories are roiling with explorations of race, class, gender, coming-of-age, and ambition. Join celebrated authors Xochitl Gonzalez, Sonora Jha, and Rebecca Makkai in a conversation moderated by Lupita Aquino about the ways their latest books lean into–and challenge–the traditions of the campus novel.
Lupita Aquino—better known as @Lupita.Reads on Instagram and TikTok—passionately spreads her love for books online. She has moderated numerous book events and founded La Comunidad Reads, an author-inclusive book club in partnership with the DC Public Library....
Sonora Jha is the author of three books, most recently the novel The Laughter (2023), which was named a Best Book of 2023 by the New Yorker and NPR, amongst others. It was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and won the AutHer Award for Best Fiction. Her...
Bruce Holsinger is a novelist, literary scholar, and editor of New Literary History. He has written or edited eleven books, including four novels, most recently The Displacements and The Gifted School, which won the Colorado Book Award. His essays have appeared in The...
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announces that Ted Chiang has been selected as the winner of the 2024 PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Given since 1988 in honor of the late Bernard Malamud, the award recognizes writers who have...
Ted Chiang's fiction has won four Hugo, four Nebula, and six Locus Awards, and has been reprinted in Best American Short Stories. His first collection Stories of Your Life and Others has been translated into twenty-one languages, and the title story was the basis for...
Claire Jiménez’s What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central) has been selected as the winner of the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. “Our judges have accomplished the seemingly impossible task of finding a ‘first among equals’ among five diverse and...
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The finalists are Witness by Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Open Throat by Henry Hoke (MCD), What Happened to Ruthy...
By Brielle Perry, Literary Education Programs Assistant On a bright February morning, seventeen third graders gather at the front of their classroom. A rare winter sunlight pours through the windows, warming the carpet as they finish their snacks and buzz with excited...
2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction WinnerClaire Jiménez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York. She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories (Johns Hopkins Press, 2019) and What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez...
2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistJamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the John Leonard Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His work...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionEmma Cline is the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and the story collection Daddy. The Girls was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle’s John...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionDaniel Clowes is an acclaimed American cartoonist, illustrator, and screenwriter. He gained fame with his comic book series Eightball, which was notable for its dark humor and commentary on modern culture. Clowes'...
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Witness by Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The Guest by Emma Cline (Random House) Monica by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics) Open Throat by Henry Hoke (MCD) The Best...
2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistHenry Hoke is an editor at The Offing and a writer whose work has appeared in No Tokens, Triangle House, Electric Literature, and the flash noir anthology Tiny Crimes. He co-created the performance series Enter>text in...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionNishanth Injam received an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. He received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and a Cecelia Joyce Johnson Award from the...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionCatherine Lacey is the author of the novels Nobody Is Ever Missing, The Answers, and Pew, and the short story collection Certain American States. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the New...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionJames McBride is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels...
2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistAlice McDermott is the author of nine novels, all published by FSG, including Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award, and That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This, which were finalists for the Pulitzer...
2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistCOLIN WINNETTE’s books include Coyote, Haints Stay, and The Job of the Wasp, which was an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Pick. Winnette’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Playboy,...
Author and philanthropist David Baldacci has been selected as the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. This annual commendation recognizes a lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers.“David Baldacci,...
PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion
LITERARY CONVERSATIONSVoices of DC will bring together DC writers Karin Tanabe, Tania James, and moderator Lauren Francis-Sharma for a conversation about the craft of historical fiction and the ways in which their work helps us make sense of the present day. DATE...
Tania James is the author of four works of fiction, most recently Loot (Knopf), which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award and the Carol Shields Prize. Her short stories have appeared in Freeman’s; Granta; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; and One...
Karin Tanabe is the author of over half a dozen novels, including A Woman of Intelligence and The Gilded Years. A former Politico reporter, her writing has also appeared in The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. She has appeared as a...
Morowa Yejidé, a native of Washington, DC, is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Time of the Locust, which was a 2012 finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize, long-listed for the 2015 PEN/Bingham Prize, and a 2015 NAACP Image Award nominee; and Creatures of...
LITERARY CONVERSATIONSAngie Cruz, Jonathan Escoffery, and Sarah Thankam Mathews have each written electrifying works of fiction centering the lives of immigrants. In a conversation with moderator Jung Yun, they explored themes of family, community, intersecting...
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