Input those blogs on her website up until last year. The mighty goods who brought this book to market and submitted to turn paired to sigrid brown who continued to attend and to the judges at 10 for selecting her for this award. Thank you. [applause] there was than a day, but i always found laws. Each are judged from farflung land to find evil queens. A wildness that falling in love could unleash. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage pulitzer prizewinning writer. [applause] gregory pardon my. Dreadful day. When the world shall pass away so the priests of the showman saying. What on class and show the firm be sharp though, wounded knee, to what judgment meekly led show then gather trumpeted by Louis Armstrong from the dead, life and death shall hear be rising from their moist internment wasting all their flags before them poison rocket bomb, nations of the earth shall calm and his record page on page for every building he shall scan indicates age sentences a righteous rage. They been shown shake me, what reply can merchants make me what defensive can the fate. Idea majestic god and savior of the broken heard sealed mean, kudrow, grant me mercy, grant the sword. On behalf of penn america and our judges have roberson, im thrilled to present this years award for poetry to one of the most important writers in all of caribbean literature, kamal bradley. [applause] his poetry is coming in his words, and into returning to the history and culture of ourselves. The primary character of the work is the insistence on the poem is language springing from a somewhere done in the spirit of the oral tradition. He gives voice to the people he lives among them his words to the nature responded generative fabric of african heritage. His work is insistently local, sinuously syncopated and consistently exciting. Im honored to accept this award on its behalf. [applause] thank you. We wanted to hold the line, but they started shooting. They sprayed everybody in the face and it went in my mouth. I couldnt breathe. Concussion grenades went off. I just covered my ears and dropped down. Imc for outside than in those heavy grasses. I dont trust nobody but the land. [applause] please welcome Vice President editorial dirt of global content for espn, patrick steedman. Good evening. Sports reflect change in American Society through her triumphs and through our failures. Sports can be art in the concept of sticking the sports throughout the history of the games we play, athletes are broken barriers of race, religion and politics. This evening we celebrate the writers that obnoxious great sports stories, but deliver great literature. This award is presented by espn and practice a number of my colleagues are with me in the audience tonight. On behalf of espn, im honored to champion honored to champion sportswriting at the highest level with some remarkable work from remarkable authors. But before that, i would first like to thank this years judges, sally jenkins, Chloe Cooper Jones and joe nocera who incidentally won this award last year. And now, the finalists of the pen espn literary sportswriter award for Nonfiction Book published in 2017 r. Jonathan cake, ralphie cohen, lee montville, jerry porter and joe tone. And the winner is, for his book, all the life, and jonathan eight. [applause] and fortunately, jonathan could not be with us tonight, but he did ask me to share a few remarks, which i will now share with you. Thank you in america and espn for this honor which i appreciate even more given the incredible list of finalists. As to my agent david bought and everyone for publishing the previous book of all time. If mohammed ali were here, i think i know what he would say. He would say giving out a word, chomp. Its my story. You just typed it. I think he would Say Something else. Something like what he said 50 years ago. I am america. I am the part you wont recognize, they get used to me. Blah, confident. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own, get used to me. Well, some people are still not used to it. Some people including the men in the white house are not used a black athletes speaking their minds in use in their to push for change. [applause] some people are not used to muslims as americans. Some people are still not used to the notion that protest is actually inactive feature each of them. [applause] that is why we are here tonight because stories like the story of mohammed ali have power. Stories unite us. Stories create compassion. Stories can knock out eight and stories can change the world. Get used to it. On behalf of jonathan, and thank you. [applause] for more than a halfcentury, and dave has written about sports with the primacy of the physical senses in the plane spare language that translates his pieces into immediate personal ax. He says. Occurred at a racetrack becomes an exercise in rising dread. Jockeys that strikes the face of the great resource and the followers of his word feel the visceral sensation. Daves narrative works read more like novels. Page turning experiences the readers are reluctant to end and always want more. We are pleased to honor his rich and distinguished career and one that personally, as i read the pages of the sporting news and later the national as an aspiring sports journalist consistently inspired enemies. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the winner of this years espn Lifetime Achievement award for literarys worth writing, and the great, dave kindred. [applause] as others have said wow, i dont know what im doing here, but im very happy to be here. As barbara said i think when i got the email from 10, i thought it was like the announcement of who one and i read it and then i said wait a minute, i should read this again. I read it again and then i said maybe i should put on my glasses to read this. It was the thrill if i were a cool guy i would act cool. But in the manner of transparency here, i am thrilled ive been a sportswriter. It was first paid to be a sportswriter 50 years ago. I was most recently paid last week, so i just keep working. [applause] i like this thing that says the freedom to write it i think all of us have a necessity to write. I know i do. I tried to retire but in the last eight years ive written 300,000 words on a Gross High SchoolBasketball Team in three books and im missing the game tonight. I have my phone on silent, but expect to get messages anytime. I am thrilled. Ive been everywhere, done everything. Ive been in bed with mohammed ali. Its a long story. [laughter] ive sat at the moonlight with the beautiful at this surely spare and. Thats a fun story. And ive seen Howard Cosell in his underwear. So im not easily thrilled, but im thrilled tonight. [laughter] and i think penn america and espn for creating and maintaining this award, for the that i love, the craft that has enabled me to write about xml, but more importantly about people and ideas. Everything ive ever thought about life for the world have been able to read and for its pages, washington post, may gray bascom and george simon here. Newspapers and magazines that allow me to say what i want to say. The freedom might come a to right and obligation to write. I am humbled, honored and proud. Thank you very much. [applause] please welcome executive director of pen and america, and suzanne novel. [applause] at penn america we think of ourselves above all as a Literary Community. Our community is heterogeneous, loosely defined, ever expanding, energize, full of opinions commended the community. When the conveniences will do later this spring when writers around the world join together in urgent dialogue. When this party as they did a few weeks back and will do and may again depend literary gala. When immobilizes as weve done time and again, saving funding for the nea, nih, imposing the muslim and, citing prison book bears, and protesting the jailing of pn mars shots to come the newly announced winners of this years freedom to write award. And what helps members and needs as we do with our Emergency Fund to bring in peril graders to safety in the community that celebrates members accomplishments as we do tonight, brimming with pride and admiration. A train to america we fortified the bonds of this Community Coming to communicate better comics banner programs to reach 14 cities across the country and draw together with her Sister Center in los angeles to create a National Organization from coast to coast. The one thing our community hasnt done, at least not formally altogether yet is to take a moment to remember. As we approach her centennial rate in 2022, we are mindful as standing on those who built this extraordinary organization of writers found in solidarity with those who pay the highest price for exercising their freedom. We owe in a calculable debt of gratitude to those who come first in which the community with their vision, writing, editing, translating kind initiative, and energy and oppression. Weve never done this before, but please join me in a moment of tribute to the great our community has said goodbye to over the last year. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, open to the stage authored the bestselling awardwinning novel come in the book of salt and bitter in the mouth and chair of the pen literary award committee, monique turned on. [applause] this evening im here to recognize the art of the short story. Like a pilot, and a short story writer knows that each paragraph , sentence and word is crucial. I would like to recognize jodi angel, leslie mecca arena and alexander klayman. The pen and Robert Shea Tao for emerging writers is generously funded by robert shea who is in the audience with us. [applause] the prize recognizes 12 emerging fiction writers for their debut short story published in the literary magazine, our cultural website in 2017. Please hold your applause to the hand while they read the names of this years honorees. The winners are you on him off the road, lauren friedlander, christina friese, lynn king, drew mccutcheon, celeste mohammed, embrace and morally, mod truth, alex jarrell, it gave the thomists will occur see a, megyn tucker and bernie long. [applause] the next award tonight is the pen Phyllis Naylor writing workshop which is offered in nearly two children or young adult fiction. This fellowship is generously funded by Phyllis Naylor, who is also in the audience tonight. [applause] it has been developed to help writers whose work is of high literary caliber and designed to assist a writer at a crucial moment in their career, to complete a book length work in progress. We would like to recognize the serious charges, lynn miller lockman, Linda Sue Park and francisco storck. This years winner is the tshaped men. Please stand to be recognized. [applause] and now, the pen robert w. Bigname prize for debut fiction is awarded to a writer whose work of fiction represents distinguished literary achievement in 2017 and suggests great comments. This award is generously funded by the Bingham Family and they are in the audience this evening. [applause] i would like to also thank our judges. Meow her, leon, scotch adjusted florez and sergey watkins. The finalists are hannah is funny. [applause] , and need a blackbird annalee friedland. Carmen maria wauconda. [applause] and jenny zach. [applause] they gave me a red envelope. And the winner is ginning sign for shower heart. [applause] [cheers and applause] while, thank you. The last time i won an award was in fourth grade. I had no idea what was going on. Still down, but thank you so much to the Bingham Family. Thank you so much to the judges, to everyone else who was nominated. Thank you for raising the bar. I grew up in a community that was considered alien if it was considered at all. Its really hard to love yourself when the world is signaling how much they dont. And i guess that is where the collective struggle is more important than my individual one. So shout out to my family, to my friend, tonight agent, samantha shea, my editor, kayla meyers who edited this book with me, to andy lord and truly to all of the people who have cared for me into a sheltered me and supported me and accepted me and challenged me and let me back no matter how much id questioned or stayed away. A special shout out to the chinese and chineseamerican community for [applause] happy year of the dog, everyone. Thank you to the chineseamerican community for letting me tell some of our stories because if i am being really honest, sometimes telling my peoples stories can feel like a betrayal and not so much a triumph. Sometimes i wonder who am i to sell out my community to those who are eager to consume or suffering and profit from our accelerants. Still, i am very lucky that ive been able to tell my stories, to tell all of the strange things that go on in my brain coming to feel not wrong and i know that freedom comes at great cost. Thank you, 10, for fighting for it. I hope for a future without walls, without borders. Finally, i am standing, my parents came today and they told me that im standing in the building across the street from where my father first lived when he emigrated to america. And i dont know, i never thought that i would be more than the gum on the back of issue, so its kind of cool to be a whole human being in front of you. [laughter] if i forgot to Say Something, its because i forgot. Thank you, mom and dad. Goodnight. [applause] the moment of false hope is gendered everybody was being happy and in the realization, and poisons public life in the u. S. I think writers have to be a full sign between truth and life of powerful and unifying and will be enough to count for the terrible things. [applause] please welcome awardwinning author of six novels and three collections of short areas, carla mccann. [applause] good evening. I am extremely humbled and honored to be here to present the award for achievement in international literature. The award began last year awarded to an International Writer for their grand body of work. I would like to sincerely thank this years judges, diana abu jar and michael i. Jay. It doesnt get much better than not. So Vladimir Nabokov once said that the sins of literary creation is to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the end timely mirrors of future times to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in faroff times. This years author, the series winning author, a friend, a hero, a legend, i love this witness. She pulls back the curtains and she opens up the windows of our rooms. She finds that fragrant tenderness and dignity. She restores what has been devalued by others. She read an incredibly complex cutie and creates deeply human structures in a world that so often opposes such complexity. She is subversive in the best way. She makes justice from reality. She refuses to live instead in submission to the times. She imagines an insidious. She bears our sorrows and illustrate the close proximity of happiness and joy of to that same sorrow. All of this is helix together from the welded together in a joyous celebration of language. Author of more than 30 books, an irish treasurer, an International Writer to cherish, a voice of our times from whom we get our own voices and indeed a writer from whom we get around time. It is with enormous pleasure that i will come to the stage this years recipient of the award, edna obrien. [applause] he cant usually sing. He sings dirty old town. Thank you. We can all make sure [speaking in native tongue] i dont ask or expect you to understand that. But my first language in a sense was irish and english was spoken at home in irish is in the partial. So if that counts for some of my schizophrenia and also the mingling of two languages, and the irish and english. Pen was founded in 1921 by john goetsch where they and my god should think how much pen has done for writers, for the world, for enlightenment and for all of us. We are the lucky ones. Some of us here tonight, some of us here last year or next year. But penn also sees the people at this very moment in jails in turkey is area all over the world tortured, silenced and never to come out. That is something amazing and something that gets forgotten because they are unable to reach us. So we have to think of them, and we do. I would like to send a belated valentine to the two judges who from the pool of fiction chose me. Taken a. They are not here. They are probably busy writing, but i want to thank them very, very much. Now, there is a puzzle for me this evening because the award ive been given is that painful cough of ward. The genius that he was, was quite scathing about women. In fact, he didnt think women could write very well if at all and he accused them of what was the phrase, the sentimental lake remains of a mob broke via. So he himself [inaudible] so what would he say about that . Thats the first thing. Second thing, i do admire him in his book called lectures on literature is unrivaled. One of the greatest books ive ever read about other writers. He chose it in a safe or jane austen, and that scraped in on account of having writ with no other reason. However, i learned from him and one thing that hit home when i was young. Thats a long time ago, by the way. He said the writer is both storyteller, teacher and enchanter. But he rated enchantment as the most important thing of all. And in that, i would totally agree with him. There is a notion out there in the big world and sometimes whole world, that writing is elitist. Writing isnt elitist. The deepest thing we have. Its as essential to us as their breathing. He brings other worlds, other pain, other grief, other humanities, other paradoxes to us through language. Writing is the golden fleet and we should never forget it. Where else was i going to say it . Yes, back to mr. Developed for a second. It means Different Things to different people. I think franks and not sure who sang a song about it, many other people been on a dance floor prevents somebody singing are many of the other pleasures. I think enchantment, speaking on literature, was the thing that i would say defines enchantment for me and a permanence. While i am lost in a very good way, lost in the depths in the variation in the genius and even sometimes slight