Why isn’t PEN America paying its incarcerated prize winners?

Recent winners of PEN America’s Prison Writing Awards are missing a total of $925 in payments—a small fortune in prison

It started with a tweet . “I won the @PENamerica Prison Writing Contest in 2022 and never received the $250 prize, even after much back and forth via email, which continues to this day. I know of at least one other first place winner who never received their prize money, either,” I wrote on March 17. As one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious literary organizations, PEN America has more than $25 million in revenue and nearly $46 million in assets. In 2021, the Mellon Foundation granted PEN America $1.5 million to expand its Prison and Justice Writing Program. Yet I spent 20 months afte

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• Vahini Shori

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