When: February 24 @ 7 pm
Where: Cooper Union’s Great Hall (7 East 7th St, NYC)
Who: André Aciman, Edward Albee, Anthony Appiah, Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg,
Nathan Englander, Janet Malcolm, Francine Prose, Sarah Ruhl, and more

Tickets are $15/$12 for students and PEN members. $50 tickets include a wine and cheese reception to follow.

Click here to buy tickets.

RSVP or invite others on Facebook.

PEN America is a literary journal published by PEN, an organization dedicated to defending human rights and works around the globe. This benefit will help raise funds to expand this important mission and the journal’s reach in the US and abroad.

Photo by Richard Wainwright

For every book you received this year as a holiday gift, consider donating $1 to the Book Wish Foundation, a nonprofit providing “reading relief” for Darfur refugees in Chad.

If you spend the day writing, you can help raise money for Dzanc, a unique non-profit independent press established (in their own words) “to not only publish great books, but to work nationally in set communities to provide writing workshops and year round programs for students and adults alike.”
Read more about the Dzanc Writer in Residency Programs (DWIRPS) and The Dzanc Prize, two of many ways this press connects writing and publishing with community service and educational outreach.

Want to read more about the event itself? Go here.

Interested in participating? Send an email to info@dzancbooks.org and receive a donation sheet for sponsors. No amount of $$ is too small — even $10 helps — and devoting a full day to your writing is priceless.

Now Waldman is channeling some of that passion toward electing Barack Obama, who she first met in law school. She’s launched a Books for Barack fundraising drive. In a widely circulated email, Waldman called for writers to donate signed copies of their books, including rare collectibles and first editions, to offer as gifts for Barack donors. Here’s how it works: you donate $250 or more to Barack through her MyBarackObama page, forward your receipt by email to Ayelet, and she and Chabon will send you a signed book from this exciting (and still-growing) collection, as well as a Books for Barack tote bag. More than $140,000 has been raised so far. To that I say, Yes we can!