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PEN American Center, the U.S. branch of the international literary and human rights group, announced yesterday that it has been awarded a twenty-five-thousand-dollar grant by Amazon. The money will support PEN’s Freedom to Write Program, which advocates on behalf of imprisoned or persecuted writers worldwide, as well as its Campaign for Core Freedoms, which opposes censorship in the United States.
A coalition of organizations representing artists and cultural workers has entered the national debate on healthcare reform. Americans for the Arts, in conjunction with twenty other national nonprofit groups, has called on Congress to enact a public health insurance option for individual artists, along with measures making it easier for cash-strapped cultural organizations to provide adequate coverage for employees.
Literature-craving commuters in New York City can now enjoy their own version of a program first launched in the London Underground six months ago—a free book exchange. Choose What You Read NY, a volunteer-run nonprofit, has begun setting up camp near major subway stations on the first Tuesday of each month to collect and redistribute donated books.
PEN American Center, the U.S. division of the world’s oldest literary and human rights organization, yesterday announced the appointment of Steven L. Isenberg as executive director. Isenberg, a professor, lawyer, and former publisher, will replace Michael Roberts, who stepped down in June after eleven years in the position.
For many writers groups and nonprofit literary organizations battered by the recession, help is on the way. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law by president Barack Obama in February, included fifty million dollars in arts funding that is being allocated by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Another literary casualty of the ailing market, the International Poetry Forum (IPF) in Pittsburgh will cease its poetry programming after this season.
Margaret Atwood has cancelled her plans to attend the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL) in Dubai after learning that British author Geraldine Bedell was told by organizers that she could not be a part of the event because one of the characters in her forthcoming novel, The Gulf Between Us, is gay.
Jane Ciabattari, president of the National Books Critic Circle, discusses the art of book reviewing and her recommendations for summer reading.
Former executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Quang Bao talks about his tenure with the organization and its influence on Asian literature over the past seventeen years.
Former New Yorker poetry editor Alice Quinn discusses her final days at the magazine and looks ahead to more time spent in her role as the director of the Poetry Society of America.
