2015 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction Longlist

The UnAmericans

Molly Antopol

(W. W. Norton & Company)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Ruby

Cynthia Bond

(Hogarth)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Black Moon

Kenneth Calhoun

(Hogarth)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Redeployment

Phil Klay

(Penguin Press)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Ride Around Shining

Chris Leslie-Hynan

(Harper)

Amazon | Indie Bound

The Dog

Jack Livings

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Amazon | Indie Bound

The Wives of Los Alamos

TaraShea Nesbit

(Bloomsbury)

Amazon | Indie Bound

The Heaven of Animals

David James Poissant

(Simon & Schuster)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Love Me Back

Merritt Tierce

(Doubleday)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Time of the Locust

Morowa Yejidé

(Atria Books)

Amazon | Indie Bound

Wikimedia v. NSA

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on March 10 filed a complaint against the National Security Agency (NSA) to challenge its interception of millions of text-based international communications (and likely many domestic ones as well) via fiber-optic cables running throughout the United States.  They claim that the government's actions both go beyond the few limits imposed by the FISA Amendment Acts of 2008 and challenges the constitutionality of the acts themselves because they violate both the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.  The plaintiffs in this complaint include the Wikimedia Foundation, PEN American Center, Amnesty International USA, The Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, The Nation Magazine, the National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Rutherford Institute, and the Washington Office on Latin America.  A copy of the complaint can be found on the ACLU's website.  The ACLU filed a previous complaint in 2008 challenging warrantless wire-tapping in Amnesty v. Clapper which was officially dismissed in 2013 prior to Edward Snowden's release of information regarding the NSA surveillance activities.  PEN has claimed that the awareness of the government's surveillance of journalists has led to rampant self-censorship and violates the basic principles of freedom of expression.  I think the fear goes deeper.  For most, it is not the knowledge that the government knows what they are writing or saying that is the problem.  It is the knowledge that there may be severe repercussions for those words.  Freedom of expression is based on the idea that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and to expression that opinion free from fear of prosecution for those beliefs.  Disagreement with the government's actions and policies should not be considered dangerous and anti-patriotic but instead an essential element of a deeper form of patriotism that demands that our nation continue to live up to its founding ideals.  Fear should not be the only dictator of national and international policy.

For more information on Wikimedia v. NSA please see:

https://www.aclu.org/national-security/wikimedia-v-nsa

http://www.pen.org/press-release/2015/03/10/pen-joins-aclu-lawsuit-stop-mass-internet-spying-program

2010 PEN USA Literary Awards

PEN Center USA the West Coast center of International PEN was founded in 1943.  Its membership includes more than 800 writers, poets, playwrights, essayists, novelists as well as writers for TV and film, critics, historians, editors, journalists and translators.  They have now announced the winners of its 2010 Literary Awards competition.  In this competition PEN USA gives out awards in 11 separate genres.  These awards will be given out at the 20th Annual Literary Awards Festival (LitFest) held at the Beverly Hills Hotel Wednesday, November 17, 2010.  At LitFest each of the winners will receive a check for $1000.  Past winners of this award have included: Woody Allen, George Cloony, Ray Bradbury, Betty Friedan, Maxine Hong Kingston and Neil Simon.

The 2010 Winners are:

Fiction

Victor Lodato: Mathilda Savitch (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

Poetry

Amy Catanzano: Multiversal (Fordham University Press)

Creative Nonfiction

Vicki Forman: This Lovely Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Research Nonfiction

Minal Hajratwala: Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company)

Children’s/Young Adult Literature

Paul Fleischman: The Dunderheads (Candlewick Press)

Journalism

Mary Melton: Julius Shulman in 36 Exposures (Los Angeles Magazine)

Translation

Fady Joudah: Mahmoud Darwish’s If I Were Another (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Drama

Julie Hebert: Tree

Screenplay

Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner: Up in the Air (Paramount Pictures)

T eleplay

Peter Blake: House: “The Tyrant” (NBC)

The Graphic Literature Award

Matt Fraction: For His Outstanding Body of Work

The University of California Press Exceptional First Book Award

Angela Garcia: The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande (University of California Press)