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...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction ’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...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionSusan 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...
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...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionPercival 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...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionGarth 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,...
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...
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionDanzy 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...
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...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionClaire 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...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionJamel 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....
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...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionHenry 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...
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...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionAlice 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...
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionCOLIN 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...
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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Jonathan Escoffery is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, AGNI,...
Sarah Thankam Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Asian American Writers Workshop and the Iowa Writers Workshop. All This Could Be Different is her first novel.
Angie Cruz is the author of the novels How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, Soledad, Let It Rain Coffee, and Dominicana, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize and a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix), a literary...
Writer in Residence
Lisa Page Literary
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The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announces that Edwidge Danticat has been selected as the winner of the 2023 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Given since 1988 in honor of the late Bernard Malamud, the award recognizes writers who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short story form.
Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, The Farming of Bones, and the novels-in-stories, The Dew Breaker, a 2005 Pen/Faulkner finalist. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the...
Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Hold Still, Want, and Flight, which were named best books of the year by The New Yorker, Time, Kirkus and others. She has also written non-fiction and criticism for The New York Times, The LA Times, Harper's Bazaar, Time,...
Alan Michael Parker is a cartoonist, novelist, and poet; he has written or edited eighteen books, including four novels and nine collections of poems. Awards for his writing include three Pushcart Prizes, two selections in Best American Poetry, the North Carolina Book...
Board President
Lakita Wilson sits on a chair in the front of the classroom, surrounded by a dozen third graders at her feet. The children are transfixed by her, listening as she explains the history of the Black Lives Matter movement, how it was ignited by the death of an innocent...
We are excited to announce that Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) has been selected as the winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. “In December, we were pleased to honor Yiyun Li with the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the...
PEN/Faulkner’s Literature on Screen series highlights writers whose work has been reimagined as a film or TV show. Our latest installment presents Louis Bayard’s The Pale Blue Eye, a vibrant historical mystery with a young Edgar Allan Poe at its center that was adapted into a 2022 Netflix film directed by Scott Cooper. The author and director will be joined by moderator Clay Smith, the Literary Director of the Library of Congress, in a conversation exploring storytelling, craft, and the creative process. The event will feature a reading, clips from the film, and an audience Q&A.
Scott Cooper made his feature film directorial debut, in 2009, with Fox Searchlight’s award-winning, CRAZY HEART, which he also wrote and produced. The film, which starred Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, and Robert Duvall, earned three Academy Award...
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The finalists are If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (MCD), Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan (Norton), The Islands by...
DATE | March 23, 2023 at 7 pm ET
LOCATION | Online Event
Writing a novel can be a lonely endeavor. Some authors find solace and inspiration in collaboration—partnering with a writer who brings a new perspective, a wealth of experiences, and different strengths. Join two pairs of novelists, Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (We Are Not Like Them) and Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman (The Thread Collectors), in conversation with author and critic Martha Anne Toll about the processes, tensions, and rewards of collaboration.
Alyson Richman is the USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of several historical novels, including The Velvet Hours, The Garden of Letters, and The Lost Wife, which is currently in development for a major motion picture. Alyson graduated from Wellesley...
Shaunna J. Edwards has a BA in literature from Harvard College and a JD from NYU School of Law. A former corporate lawyer, she now works in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is a native Louisianian, raised in New Orleans, and currently lives in Harlem with her...
Jo Piazza is a bestselling author, podcast creator, and award-winning journalist. She is the national and international bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels and nonfiction books including We Are Not Like Them, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, The...
Christine Pride is a writer, editor, and longtime publishing veteran. She’s held editorial posts at many different trade imprints, including Doubleday, Broadway, Crown, Hyperion, and Simon & Schuster. As an editor, Christine has published a range of books, with a...
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award WinnerYiyun Li is the author of several works of fiction—Must I Go, Where Reasons End, Kinder Than Solitude, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants, and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl—and the memoir Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in...
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistJonathan Escoffery is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review,...
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistLaura Warrell is a contributor to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, and is a graduate of the creative writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in HuffPost,...
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionMat Johnson is a Philip H. Knight Chair of the Humanities at the University of Oregon. His publications include the novels Loving Day and Pym, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novel...
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionMeng Jin the author of Little Gods, a finalist for both the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and the Los Angeles Times’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in...
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistDionne Irving is originally from Toronto, Ontario. She is the author of THE ISLANDS (Catapult) and QUINT (7.13 Books) She currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program and the Initiative on Race and Resilience at the...
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction FinalistKathryn Harlan received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she now teaches writing. She was the recipient of the 2019 August Derleth Graduate Creative Writing Prize. Her work has appeared in the...
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionConner Habib hosts the podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib, which features in-depth conversations on topics as broad as punk rock, philosophy, fiction, and occultism. His writing has appeared in multiple...
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionBorn and raised in Puerto Rico, Mayra Cuevas is the author of the teen novels Does My Body Offend You? and Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Her short story Resilient was published as part of the anthology FORESHADOW. Mayra is...
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionRubén Degollado is an educator from Texas and the author of The Family Izquierdo: A Novel and the young adult novel Throw. His fiction has appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and...
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The longlist includes the following ten titles: Does My Body Offend You? by Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt (Knopf)...
LITERARY CONVERSATIONSMemoirs open windows into lives, granting readers access to deeply personal narratives. Whether they reflect our own experiences or challenge us to engage with new ones, the best memoirs enhance and complicate our understanding of the world. Join...
Margo Jefferson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic and a recipient of the 2022 Windham-Campbell Prize in Nonfiction. She has published three books: Constructing a Nervous System: a memoir; Negroland: a memoir, which won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle...
Isaac Fitzgerald is the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts (winner of a New England Book Award). He appears frequently on The Today Show and is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of...
Nicole Chung is the author of the forthcoming memoir A Living Remedy (April 4, 2023) and the national bestseller All You Can Ever Know (2018). Named a Best Book of the Year by over twenty outlets, including NPR, The Washington Post, Time, and Library Journal, All You...
At our Literary State of the Union event, we had the good fortune of hearing from several DC-area writers in response to the following prompt: "What Does Being a Writer Teach Me about the State of the Union?" We are delighted to be able to share two of their...
LITERARY CONVERSATIONSStorytellers have long been inspired by our city's rich past and present, elevating the voices of its citizens, exploring its landmarks and tucked-away corners, and imagining its future. We invite residents of DC to join three fantastic...
Zak Salih is the author of the novel Let's Get Back to the Party, recommended as a must-read book in 2021 by O, the Oprah Magazine; BuzzFeed; Cosmopolitan; The Millions; Electric Literature; Vanity Fair; The Advocate; Harper's Bazaar; Kirkus Reviews; Lambda Literary;...
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