The PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion

OUR 2025 PEN/FAULKNER LITERARY CHAMPION

Dr. Carla Hayden

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 nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate later that year on July 13.

Her vision for America’s national library, connecting all Americans to the Library of Congress, redefined and modernized the Library’s mission: to engage, inspire and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity.

Prior to this role, Dr. Hayden held leadership positions at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Chicago Public Library, the University of Pittsburgh Library, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Chicago Public Library.

OUR 2023 PEN/FAULKNER LITERARY CHAMPION

Terry Gross

Terry Gross is the host and co-executive producer of Fresh Air, the daily program of interviews and reviews. It is produced at WHYY in Philadelphia, where Gross began hosting the show in 1975, when it was broadcast locally. Her interviews with leading writers, actors, directors, musicians, comics, journalists, scholars, and others now reach 4.9 million people weekly, on 659 NPR stations across the U.S. and Europe. Fresh Air was the most downloaded podcast on Apple Podcasts in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Fresh Air not only covers popular culture, it’s become a familiar part of it. Gross played herself on The Simpsons, Bojack Horseman, This Is Us, and Cartoon Network’s Clarence and has been name-checked on Saturday Night Live, Girls, HBO’s Eastbound and Down, How I Met Your Mother, and Younger. She also played a young dinosaur on the animated series The Fungies.

OUR 2021 PEN/FAULKNER LITERARY CHAMPION

LeVar Burton

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. LeVar also has a new YouTube series, This Is My Story, which highlights racism in America. During the COVID-19 lockdown, TwitterLive hosted livestream short story readings presented by LeVar to millions of his fans and avid readers. LeVar starred as Kunta Kinte in the acclaimed mini-series Roots. LeVar also starred as Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series and in feature films.