UPDATE: it has since come to my attention that PEN America is a Zionist-sympathetic organization that has consistently failed to meet the moment on the genocide in Gaza, and now I do NOT want to be affiliated with them, so I'm withdrawing from the awards. Free Palestine

I am moved by the integrity of the authors withdrawing from prize lists to protest PEN America's refusal to name the genocide in Gaza and failure to meet their stated aims of protecting free speech and Palestinian writers. Here are their books to buy bookshop.org/wishlists/7166…

Kicking off our #WorldLiteratureFestival on April 15, join poets Camonghne Felix, Dorothea Lasky, Emanuel Xavier, and moderator Helena de Groot for readings and lively discussion about poetry, language, and labor.

Register now to join in person or online: on.nypl.org/4akvl8q

abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/…

.PEN America, as it stands currently, is untrustworthy, hypocritical, & unsustainable. Its leadership must go. An audit of its failure to accomplish its mission must be implemented. Call them out, writers.

Now 4/10 of the PEN/Jean Stein longlisters have said no to the $75K prize in protest of PEN America. Camonghne Felix Ordinary Notes Maya Binyam Alejandro Varela. 3/10 so far for Poetry. Many more in other categories. PEN’s current leadership is untrustworthy & has compromised its mission.

independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…

PEN International released their schedule for the World Voices Festival this week. I was supposed to appear at a panel in NYC alongside other Native writers. I was really excited. But PEN America's stance on Israel's genocide of Palestinians has made it clear: I cannot go.

The way people treat Black women and Black women’s labor out here is crazzzyyyy. Nothing new but still mind boggling when I witness behavior that I know would never occur in interaction with another non-black person.

With my gratitude to the judges for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize - nevertheless, I am withdrawing:

From DYSCALCULIA by Camonghne Felix 🇵🇸🖤

while i personally have not been nominated for any prizes from any problematic institutions recently, i feel like we need to come up with some kind of new framework of mutual aid for these divest & refuse actions

I withdrew my work from consideration for the Jean Stein Award. I can't align myself w/ a human rights org that waits 5 months to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, while platforming zionists & pretending there's nuance to genocide.
✊🏽🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
✊🏽Writers Against the War on Gaza
✊🏽PEN America United

I cannot believe that in the year 2024 such a sentence is allowed to exist, in the open air, like this. That we are expected to see it, ingest it, & go on. We cannot go on. No person should utter this statement, digitally, or otherwise & be left to incoming danger in silence.

I told you tonight we die as a family
we were supposed to die
as a family

Man, Gaia Rajan is such a good poet 💜

I actually think that attempting to “normalize” abortion is bad because abortion is normal, patriarchy is the problem, patriarchy is the thing we are trying to denormalize

“22 patients were shot while in their hospital beds”