PEN America

What is the toll of the coronavirus on journalism in the United States? While we will never know the full impact, this project – which examines the first 10 months of the pandemic from March to December 2020 – is a
start.

Vietnamese writer Tran Duc Thach was convicted on charges of subversion under Article 109 of the country’s criminal code. He was arrested in April for Facebook posts criticizing corruption in government and human rights abuses in the country.

President Barack Obama sat down for an interview with former PEN America president and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Ron Chernow. The following is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

“Threat of Dissent” tells America’s history of ideological exclusion and instituting laws and practices that bar or deport visitors or immigrants based on their beliefs or their expression, and within the text, she unpacks how that history intersects with that of PEN America.

On the precipice of one of the most consequential elections in the history of American democracy, PEN America asked writers Natalie Diaz, Jean Guerrero, Laila Lalami, and Alice Wong to provide their insights and reflections in this collection of essays.

Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) of PEN America launched the #ArtistsxArtists campaign, which pairs artists to collaborate on a piece that engages human rights and free expression. Here is a piece by Vietnamese songwriter and activist Mai Khoi and Lebanese vocalist Hamed Sinno.

Friends and family may well spread misinformation. They probably think the content is true, and they may feel they’re sharing something important. That can make it tough to know how to confront them. Here are a few suggestions.

For the first six months of 2020, PEN America tracked policy, operational, and functional updates major social media companies made in response and relation to the pandemic.