Talk:PEN America

PEN American v. PEN USA
Should we start a separate page for the PEN USA (Los Angeles) center? I bet many people would assume the two are the same, if they don't know the different cities involved. (I didn't know this and sent several links to this page by mistake....) Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm kind of wondering if all the PENs shouldn't be merged into one article?Athene cunicularia (talk) 01:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The current article is misleading, since it suggests that PEN Center West is not part of PEN. In fact, PEN is composed of 145 centers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and the Americas with a total membership of approximately 15,000 spread throughout these organizations. Outside of the UK, the two largest are PEN in New York City, and PEN Center West in LA. I think there should be one listing for PEN, with subcategories for the two largest affiliates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.2.21 (talk • contribs) 07:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The PEN American Center (New York) unified with PEN Center USA (= Los Angeles branch) under the umbrella of PEN America in 2018. --Recherchedienst (talk) 13:46, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

portal/project?
Shouldn't this article be included in the Literature Project? Aristophanes68 (talk) 15:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

US claiming European writers
The third paragraph at the moment includes Thomas Mann and Salman Rushdie among a list of "leading lights in the American literary establishment". I don't think that description can be applied to either of them. But I haven't tried to correct it, because I don't know what point the writer is trying to make here. But if nothing else we should just remove their names from the list. Robfuller (talk) 23:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Dear Robfuller,

Literary writers such as Salman Rushdie and Thomas Mann are the members of American Literary Society, and have been acclaimed long standing trustees of PEN American Center. Therefore, I shall defend having them listed in the article, despite their European nationality. Salman Gurung 10:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samsujata (talk • contribs)

Updated the article with Infobox, References and Content
With an intensive research on the topic, I have expanded the article adding a new section "Involvement in Theater", and have added references to reliable third party sources. Moreover, I have standardized the article using Template:Infobox_organization

I have removed the tag posted by User:Robofish, stating the lack of Secondary and reliable references to the article.

Salman Gurung 10:37, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

List of PEN awards
I've created a new list-of article - List of PEN literary awards - to aggregate all the PEN center awards into a single page for easier viewing and reference from various articles. I've also removed the detail about the 2011 winners since it's too long and detailed to track that sort of info on this page. Suggest that if that sort of thing is wanted to mirror the 2011 Pulitzer Prize article, but two cautions: 1. Will need abundant third-party sources that discuss the awards, not just repeating the list of winners, but actual critical commentary. 2. It would make sense to pursue if you plan on making these pages going back in history not just for 2011-2012, it would be a lot of work. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Norman Mailer???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdQcusxaBEY

According to this clip from a 1986 "Firing Line," Mailer was "The President of PEN." I don't know if that was PEN Intl. or The US PEN??? However, I remember that time quite well and Mailer was very involved with the organization, raised a lot of money, and, in 1989, persuaded Stephen King to threaten Barnes and Noble Books stores with "pulling" all his best sellers if B&N did not prominently display Salman Rushdie's _Satanic Verses_ in all its stores. I think you need to include Mailer on this page and do more research on his role in the organization. Thanks. johncheverly 03:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on PEN American Center. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061011182043/http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1064 to http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1064
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061011182055/http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1303 to http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1303
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20030913024527/http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/pen.html to http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/pen.html

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PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Regarding:
 * The $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award is currently the top award given by PEN America, and among the largest literary prize in the United States.

See List of richest literary prizes. Eight US-based literary awards over $100,000 .. this doesn't count awards under $100,000 so there may be more in the $75-$99,000 range. Overall I don't think any award under $100 really qualifies as "among the largest" and the LA Times article neglects to mention these other higher awards so it doesn't seem very reliable for this factoid. -- Green  C  02:07, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Merge wiki/PEN_America and wiki/PEN_American_Center
They both say that they are the same thing, I bet people would appreciate the merging of the two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaiBrown1204 (talk • contribs) 19:10, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ "PEN American Center" → PEN America (new name). PEN America (restored original version) → PEN America (journal). --Recherchedienst (talk) 13:29, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

CEO and President
Suzanne Nossel is listed on C-SPAN on Aug 22, 2020 as the CEO and President of PEN America — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.36.75.34 (talk) 21:44, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Trump Connection?
I noticed under the See Also section a link for "List of lawsuits involving Donald Trump#Lawsuits around the United States Constitution". How is this connected? I'd assume it was vandalism if not for the fact the change dates to last year at least. Delete? 04:06, 25 May 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 人族 (talk • contribs)

Deleted. 194.25.174.98 (talk) 07:02, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

PEN
Is this an acronym? It's capitalized but not introduced anywhere in the article. Valgrus Thunderaxe (talk) 16:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * From https://pen.org/about-us/ : Our name was conceived as an acronym: Poets, Essayists, Novelists (later broadened to Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists). Over time, as Membership expanded to include a more diverse range of people involved with words and freedom of expression, those categories no longer defined who could join. Today, the “PEN” in PEN America does not represent an acronym. Schazjmd   (talk)  16:57, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That info is also documented in the History section of the article. Schazjmd   (talk)  16:59, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

"Region served"
This is currently noted as "Eastern Half of USA". I'm guessing this harks back to the formerly separate LA center, and should now be the whole USA? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 109.255.211.6 22:05, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Controversies section needed
Hedges excoriates PEN here:

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pen-america-self-destructs/

PEN's CEO criticized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Nossel#Controversy M.mk (talk) 02:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I added a Controversies section and cited Hedges. M.mk (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I started the section as "Controversies."
 * Subsequently someone narrowed that title to:
 * "Controversies over war in Gaza."
 * Subsequent to that, this Chris Hedges sentence as part of my original entry for Controversies was deleted:
 * "It [PEN America] has repeated false accusations against Julian Assange and refused to classify him as a journalist." M.mk (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I restored the section title to simply "Controversies" and it now has three subsections where I restored Hedges' criticism of PEN America concerning Assange under a new Assange subsection. M.mk (talk) 00:22, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I added to the section a subsection called "Labor." Here is my source for those who know how to do the footnote thing: https://jacobin.com/2024/05/pen-america-union-negotiations-gaza M.mk (talk) 15:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC)