Torrey Peters is the author of the bestselling novel Detransition, Baby (Random House, 2021), which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for the John Leonard Prize, longlisted for the Women’s Prize, and was a Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club...
Neon Yang is the author of the Tensorate series of novellas from Tor.Com Publishing (The Red Threads of Fortune, The Black Tides of Heaven, The Descent of Monsters and The Ascent to Godhood). Their work has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, Lambda Literary and...
Zeyn Joukhadar is the author of The Thirty Names of Night, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Stonewall Book Award, and The Map of Salt and Stars, which won the Middle East Book Award and was a Goodreads Choice Awards and Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize...
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The finalists are Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Counterpoint), The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (Grove...
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionRabih Alameddine is the author of the novels An Unnecessary Woman; I, the Divine; Koolaid; The Hakawati; and the story collection The Perv. In 2019, he won the Dos Passos Prize. Purchase The Wrong End of the...
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionNawaaz Ahmed was born in Tamil Nadu, India. Before turning to writing, he was a computer scientist, researching search algorithms for Yahoo. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and is the winner of...
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionCarolina de Robertis is the author of five novels, including Cantoras, winner of both a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, and a finalist for both the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award; it was...
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionCarolyn Ferrell is the author of the short-story collection Don’t Erase Me, which received the Art Seidenbaum Award of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize program, the John C. Zacharis Award given by Ploughshares, and...
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionImbolo Mbue is the author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. The novel has been translated into eleven...
Finger snaps toppled over one another in the classroom. Rain trickled down the school’s windows, but the excitement of the students wasn’t dulled by the bad weather. Alan King—a poet from Bowie, MD—was discussing his poem “Mr. On-Time” with students at E. L. Haynes...
Kaitlyn Greenidge's debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, was one of the New York Times Critics’ Top 10 Books of 2016 and a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times and the features director at...
Bethanne Patrick is a writer, author, and book critic whose work appears regularly in the LA Times and has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, at NPR Books and Lit Hub, and many other publications. She is First VP and Programs Chair for the PEN/Faulkner...
Born into the Vietnam War in 1973, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai grew up witnessing the war’s devastation and its aftermath. She worked as a street seller and rice farmer before winning a scholarship to attend university in Australia. She is the author of eight books of poetry,...
Jonathan Lee is the author of four novels, most recently The Great Mistake. He is the editorial director of Bloomsbury.
DATE | February 28, 2022 at 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
History isn’t fixed. It’s written and rewritten all the time as historians adopt contemporary perspectives on past events. Writers of historical fiction incorporate those new perspectives into their work, too, revealing new ideas and stories. Join three acclaimed historical novelists—Kaitlyn Greenidge, Jonathan Lee, and Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai—in a conversation moderated by author and PEN/Faulkner board member Bethanne Patrick about bringing fresh artistry to accurate portrayals of history.
We are thrilled to announce the longlist of books for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The longlist includes the following ten titles: Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Counterpoint)The Wrong End of the...
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Education Programs Director
Writer in Residence
DATE | December 3, 2021 at 7:30 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
The 2021 PEN/Malamud Award Ceremony celebrated Charles Baxter. This year’s event featured a reading, an in-depth conversation and a Q&A about his 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.
Writer in Residence
Louise Erdrich
Cherie Jones
Margaret Verble
Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Tommy Orange
Rumaan Alam
Mateo Askaripour
Kevin Kwan
Petra Mayer
Leigh Bardugo
DATE | Wed, November 17, 2021, 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
We engaged with Louise Erdrich, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Tommy Orange, who are among the most highly acclaimed Native writers of our time. Moderated by Margaret Verble, this discussion explored how their storytelling has been informed by their experiences as Indigenous people.
A recording and transcript is now available.
DATE | Wed, October 27, 2021, 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
Money affects every aspect of human behavior. Authors Kevin Kwan, Cherie Jones, and Mateo Askaripour, with moderator Rumaan Alam, will explore the depiction of money and global financial systems in their work and in contemporary literature.
DATE | Wed, September 22, 2021, 7:00 PM
LOCATION | Online Event
This fourth installment of Literature on Screen featured Leigh Bardugo, author of the best-selling book turned hit Netflix series, “Shadow and Bone.” Leigh was in conversation with Petra Mayer (NPR) to discuss the translation of her books to the hit Netflix series!
A recording and transcript of this event is now available!
Eugenia Kim
Rebecca Makkai
Charles Baxter
Charles Baxter has been selected as the winner of the 2021 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....
The 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration was held on May 10, 2021, and honored this year's distinguished books and authors. This exquisite literary evening featured original readings by our PEN/Faulkner Award winner and four finalists; commendations by our three...
Though the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration is virtual this year, we are still incredibly excited to honor the year's best in fiction with you. Join our team in setting the mood by streaming our event playlist, mixing a custom drink, and putting your literary...
We're delighted to present this essay by Jennifer Cheng, our incredible Literary Outreach/Education Programs intern who joined us this past winter/spring, about an experience at an author visit that impacted her. Bringing Worlds to Life: Fostering Empathy and...
DATE | April 19, 2021
LOCATION | Online Event
Crisis featured three novelists whose work is informed by the possibility of impending crisis.
T.C. Boyle (World’s End, The Terranauts), Jenny Offill (Weather, Dept. of Speculation), and Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death, Lagoon) were in conversation with moderator Sean Murphy (Founder & Executive Director, 1455).
The recording and transcript for this event is now available.
Sean Murphy
Nnedi Okorafor
Jenny Offill
T.C. Boyle
We are excited to announce that Deesha Philyaw's The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (West Virginia University Press) has been selected as the winner of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction!"Choosing from among our five exceptional finalists was a supremely difficult...
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s most prestigious peer-juried literary prize. The finalists are Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Counterpoint), The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (Grove...
DATE | March 11, 2021 at 7pm ET
LOCATION | Online Event
Refuge featured authors who have explored topics of immigration, identity, and home in their work, at a time when these issues are especially urgent.
This insightful and challenging discussion of refuge and home featured authors Aleksandar Hemon (Nowhere Man, The Lazarus Project), Abdi Nor Iftin (Call Me American), Souvankham Thammavongsa (How to Pronounce Knife), and moderator Matthew Davis (Founding Director, Alan Cheuse International Writers Center).
Catch the recording and transcript of this event now!
Matthew Davis
Abdi Nor Iftin
Aleksandar Hemon
G. Willow Wilson
Mathangi Subramanian
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Scattered Lights by Steve Wiegenstein
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
Nine Shiny Objects by Brian Castleberry
Mother Daughter Widow Wife by Robin Wasserman
The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe
Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear by Matthew Salesses
Dear Ann by Bobbie Ann Mason
Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
Yaa Gyasi
Deesha Philyaw
Steve Wiegenstein
Danielle Evans
Brian Castleberry
Robin Wasserman
Rufi Thorpe
Matthew Salesses
Bobbie Ann Mason
K-Ming Chang
Airea D. Matthews
N.K. Jemisin
Tananarive Due
Sheree Renée Thomas
Maria Hinojosa
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