PEN America: Last News

PEN America, the 101-year-old organization dedicated to “the freedom to write,” is offering grants to help early-career screenwriters during the Writers Guild strike, which is now in its 122nd day. Its new Screenwriters Emergency Assistance Fund is offering short-term grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 to eligible screenwriters on a first come-first served basis.

Colin Jost opened the PEN America Gala under the iconic model of a blue whale at the Museum of Natural History calling himself “a writer and a friend of writers” and “extremely fortunate to be here tonight surrounded by two things that might not be around much longer — writers and ocean life. This is the first time that a whale is not the most endangered thing in the room.”

Ted Sarandos, who was set to receive the PEN America Visionary Award at the literary group’s gala next week in NYC, won’t be attending amid an ongoing strike and vigorous picketing on both coasts by the WGA.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos will no longer attend a gala meant to honor him next week in New York. The decision comes as labor issues grab headlines across Hollywood. Sarandos was set to accept the Business Visionary Award at the annual PEN American Spring Literary Gala, alongside fellow honoree Lorne Michaels and a host of literati including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Susan Choi, Jennifer Egan, Min Jin Lee, Jay McInerney and Gay Talese. He’s skipping the event, to be held under the blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History, as many industry celebrations weigh how to address the writers strike. “Given the potential to disrupt this wonderful evening, I thought it was best to pull out so as not to distract from the important work that PEN America does for writers and journalists, as well as the celebration of my friend and personal hero Lorne Michaels. I hope the evening is a great success,” Sarandos told Variety in a statement.

Tina Fey will receive the 2023 PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award at 59th annual PEN America Literary Awards. “It’s been a lifelong dream to have my name associated in any way with the great Mike Nichols,” Fey said in statement Wednesday. “Thanks to this award, I can stop working on my ‘Silkwood’ reboot.” Fey is the fifth recipient to ever receive the award, which honors a groundbreaking writer who inspires audiences similar to the late director Mike Nichols. The award will be presented to Fey by her “Saturday Night Live” co-star Rachel Dratch.

PEN America held one of New York’s first major indoor literary gatherings since the pandemic began last year, as hundreds met Tuesday night for the organization’s annual gala to honour writers, community servants, political dissidents and such prominent public figures as Walt Disney executive chair Robert A. Iger.

Jodie Foster hit the red carpet for the 2021 PEN America Literary Gala.

EXCLUSIVE: Outgoing Disney executive chairman Bob Iger and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. are set to receive top honors from PEN America in person this fall at NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, perhaps.

Rebecca Davis editorNonprofit PEN America on Wednesday issued a moral clarion call to Hollywood to step up its efforts to resist Chinese censorship and increase transparency, singling out the MPA for appearing to defend free speech at home only when financially convenient.The New York-headquartered free speech advocacy group detailed the mechanisms by which China influences decision-making in Hollywood and offered recommendations for how to mitigate pernicious complicity with the world’s most censorious regime in an unsparing 100-page report entitled “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing.”It comes as American politicians have recently turned up the heat on Hollywood on the matter amid rapidly deteriorating relations between the U.S.

Dominic Patten, Ted Johnson A day that Attorney General William Barr, Sen. Ted Cruz and PEN America agree on the basics of anything is obviously a chilly one in Hell, but today is such a day with the publication of a candid new report by the free speech organization condemning “Hollywood’s approach to acceding to Chinese dictates.”“Beijing has sent a clear message to the filmmaking world, that filmmakers who criticize China will be punished, but that those who play ball with its censorship strictures will be rewarded,” proclaims the hard hitting “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing” report in language echoing recent strident statements by America’s top law enforcement official and the Texas GOP Senator (READ IT HERE).