Formation | 1980 |
---|---|
Founder | Mary Lee Settle |
Purpose | Charitable arts foundation |
Headquarters | United States |
Official language | English |
Website | penfaulkner |
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation (est. 1980) is an independent charitable arts foundation that supports the art of fiction and encourages readers of all ages. It accomplishes this through a number of programs, including its flagship PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction, and a number of educational and public literary programs. Since 1983 the Foundation's administration has been located in Washington, D.C.. The Foundation was established in 1980 by National Book Award winner Mary Lee Settle. Novelist Robert Stone served as the Chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Board of Directors for over thirty years beginning in 1982.
After the novel Blood Tie won the National Book Award in 1978, author Mary Lee Settle was asked to judge the 1979 National Book Awards. When the award went to an obscure book Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien and not the bestseller The World According to Garp by John Irving, the rules were changed. Settle upset by the rule changes, envisioned a book award that "would be judged by writers, not by industry insiders, and no favoritism would be granted to bestselling authors." [1] A New York Times article from 1981 writes that "PEN voted a boycott of the American Book Awards, on the ground that they were 'too commercial'". [2] In 1980 along with friends, Settle set up a competing organization for American fiction that was named PEN/Faulkner. PEN stood for "Poets", "Editors" and "Novelists". Faulkner was chosen in honor of William Faulkner who was an inspiration to Settle. [1]
The PEN/Faulkner Award winner receives a prize of $15,000, and each of the four runner-ups receives $5,000. The first award in 1981 went to How German Is It written by Walter Abish. [1] The ceremony was originally held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. [2]
Seattle's vision was for the organization to encourage young writers by having published authors visit and mentor students in the school system. Creating '"a community of writers' who would encourage one other ... and make a larger impact on American life". The organization began with high schools in the Washington D.C. area and eventually expanded to middle and elementary schools as well. Settle remained on the board until her death in 2005. [1]
In 1982, Robert Stone (who had been a PEN/Faulkner nominee in 1981), Norman Mailer and Peter Taylor were the featured speakers for the Foundation's very first fundraising event, tickets selling for $25 a person. Stone served as Chairman for over thirty years, co-chairing with Susan Shreve in the last years of his tenure. [3]
The first award was given in 1981 to How German Is It by Walter Abish. [2] Judges are chosen by the Board of Directors in order to remove "commercial influence". [4] The judges select ten books from a submission process that may include over 400 novels [5] submitted by publishers, authors and literary agents. Judges then narrow the longlist down to five. One of those five is selected as the "'first among equals", and the author receives $15,000. Authors of the other four finalists receive $5,000. The award is presented at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington D. C.. [4]
The PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story was named for Bernard and Ann Malamud. Bernard Malamud was an award-winning author. The award was established in 1988. It is presented "to a writer who demonstrates dedication to the craft of the short story and whose stories are exceptionally well-realized". Judges are selected by members of the Board of Directors. Outside submissions are not allowed. Judges rely on a small advisory board of literary leaders and their own knowledge of the field. [6] The first PEN/Malamud Award was given to John Updike. [7]
The PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion commendation was established in 2020 at the 40th anniversary of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. It was established "in recognition of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers". Past winners have included LeVar Burton (2021), Oprah Winfrey (2022), Terry Gross (2023), and David Baldacci (2024). [8]
According to The Washington Post literary critic Ron Charles, the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Awards seemed to be setting a new standard for diversity in literature awards. The short list of nominees included Viet Dinh, Louise Erdrich, Garth Greenwell, Imbolo Mbue and Sunil Yapa. Charles wrote, "These writers are the United States, and they tell this country's experience with a dazzling range of voices and styles", adding that four of the finalists were debut novelists creating a "new vibrancy of American fiction". These five were selected from among "almost 500 works of fiction by American authors published in the United States during 2016." Winners are notified in advance of the award ceremony which in May 2017 was held at the Folger Shakespeare Library with dinner, followed by each of the five authors reading from their novels. [9]
In order to be more inclusive, in 2018 the PEN/Faulkner board changed the American citizenship requirement to include “'American permanent residents and Green Card holders'”. According to Shahenda Helmy, the change was intended to reflect "'the true landscape of American fiction'". [10]
Thomas Coraghessan Boyle is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published nineteen novels and more than 150 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988, for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York.
Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe.
Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at Yale University.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Judges read citations for each of the finalists' works at the presentation ceremony in Washington, D.C.. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country." The award was first given in 1981.
Robert Anthony Stone was an American novelist, journalist, and college professor.
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. She was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.
Edward Paul Jones is an American novelist and short story writer. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award for his 2003 novel The Known World.
George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, "American Psyche", to The Guardian's weekend magazine between 2006 and 2008.
Nell Freudenberger is an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer.
Mary McGarry Morris is an American novelist, short story author and playwright from New England. She uses its towns as settings for her works. In 1991, Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times described Morris as "one of the most skillful new writers at work in America today"; The Washington Post has described her as a "superb storyteller"; and The Miami Herald has called her "one of our finest American writers".
Richard Bausch is an American novelist and short story writer, and Professor in the Writing Program at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has published thirteen novels, nine short story collections, and one volume of poetry and prose.
Marie Arana is a Peruvian author, editor, journalist, critic, and the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress.
Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.
The PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award honors "excellence in the art of the short story". It is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors. The award was first given in 1988.
Joan Silber is an American novelist and short story writer. She won the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her novel Improvement.
Carolyn Ferrell is an American short story writer and novelist.
Amina Gautier is an American writer and academic. She is the author of four short story collections, many individual stories, as well as works of literary criticism.
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is an American novelist, short story writer and journalist whose fiction and literary non-fiction includes the recent novel Burning Distance, upcoming novel The Far Side of the Desert, regional bestseller The Dark Path to the River, the short story collection No Marble Angels, and PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line. She’s also the senior editor of The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. She is a Vice President of PEN International and has served as the International Secretary of PEN International and Chair of PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee.
Jamel Brinkley is an American writer. His debut story collection, A Lucky Man (2018), was the winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. It was also a finalist for the National Book Award, The Story Prize, the John Leonard Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. He currently teaches fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.