PEN America 11: Make Believe

The online feature for PEN America 11: Make Believe is now online at PEN.org. The new issue focuses on the question of belief in various forms—religious faith, political commitment, the “willing suspension of disbelief,” and more.

Several pieces from the issue are available online, and I’ll have more about them soon. For now, I want to point your attention to the forum. We sent a number of writers the following prompt:

1 Imagine a book you wish had been written, either by yourself or by someone else, living or dead, real or imaginary;

or

2 Tell us something you believe about books—their power or lack of it, how they change the world or don’t, what they’ve done for you or failed to do.

We published seventeen responses in the issue, and we’ll be posting those at PEN.org over the next few weeks (the first two up are by Terese Svoboda and Amitava Kumar). We’re also looking for your responses. So have a look.

And while you’re there, you can read some haunting fiction, brilliant poems, insightful conversations, and more.

The cover art, by the way, is by the young artist Tyler Bewley.

Check it out. And order your copy! Better yet, subscribe.