PEN/Faulkner

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation celebrates readers, writers and literature in America through a variety of events and programs.

The Folger Shakespeare Library hosts an annual evening of readings in celebration of the year's winners and finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America's largest peer-juried prize for fiction. In addition, the award judges, share citations written for each of the honorees. Following the readings, a buffet dinner is served in the Paster Reading Room.

Past seasons

2010s

• Tananarive Due, N.K. Jemisin, & Airea D. Matthews: What Was, What Is, and What Will Be: A Cross-Genre Look at Afrofuturism (2019)
• The 38th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (2018)
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story: Jhumpa Lahiri (2018)
• The 37th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Imbolo Mbue (2018)
• The Displaced: An Evening with Laila Lalami, Shobha Rao, & Luis Urrea (2017)
• Manuel Gonzales, Yona Harvey, and Gary Jackson; We Wear the Masks: Poetry and Fiction inspired by Comic Books (2017)
• Angela Flournoy, Marcus Guillory, & Margo Jefferson: Class in the Black Community (2017)
• Nathaniel Rich & Kate Walbert: Cli-Fi (2017)
• Roxane Gay & Morgan Parker: Urgently Human (2017)
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story: Joy Williams (2016)
• The Eudora Welty Lecture: Salman Rushdie (2016)
• The 28th Annual PEN/Faulkner Celebration (2016)
• The 36th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: James Hannaham (2016)
• Louise Erdrich (2016)
• A Tribute to Robert Stone (2016)
• Edna O'Brien (2016)
• Mitchell S. Jackson and Leslie Jamison: I Feel Your Pain (2016)
• Celeste Ng & John Wray: Not Waving But Drowning (2016)
• 2015 PEN/Malamud Award: Deborah Eisenberg (2015)
• Replacement Lives: An Evening with David Bezmozgis, Boris Fishman, and Lara Vapnyar (2015)
• SPARK: The 27th Annual PEN/Faulkner Celebration (2015)
• 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award Ceremony: Atticus Lish (2015)
• Allan Gurganus and Elizabeth Strout: Where We Are From (2015)
• T.C. Boyle: All Things Animate, Beating in Unison (2015)
• Ruth Ozeki & Claire Vaye Watkins: The Imaginary Real (2015)
• The Legacy of Bernard Malamud: Edward P. Jones, Lorrie Moore, & Tobias Wolff (2014)
• James Carroll and Marilynn Robinson (2015)
• A Remembrance of Robert Stone (2015)
• In This Way Comes Morning: New Writing of the West African Diaspora: Okey Ndibe, Chinelo Okparanta, and Taiye Selasi (2014)
• The 26th Annual PEN/Faulkner Gala: “Danger” (2014)
• 34th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony and Dinner (2014)
• Amy Tan and Deborah Tannen: Two Lives in Language (2014)
• The Heart of Things Human: An Evening with Richard Ford, in Conversation with Ron Charles (2014)
• Survival Instincts: First-time Novelists on the Ties That Bind: Ayana Mathis & Justin Torres (2014)
• Whose Lift Is It, Anyway?: The Literary Biographer's Craft: Blake Bailey, Ruth Franklin, and D.T. Max (2014)
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story: George Saunders (2013)
• Blood Lines: the Literature of War Philip Caputo & Kevin Powers (2013
• The Human Comedy: Serious Humor in the American Novel: Tom Perrotta & Maria Semple (2013)
• 25th Annual PEN/Faulkner Gala – “Renewal” (2013)
• MK Asante & Lisa Page (2013)
• The 33rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony:  Benjamin Alire Sáenz (2013)
• Learning to Breathe: An Evening with Terry McMillan (2013)
• Geraldine Brooks, Julie Otsuka, & Dolen Perkins-Valdez (2013)
• Susan Richards Shreve & Nicole Idar (2013)
• William Kennedy & Thomas Mallon (2013)
• Chad Harbach & Karen Russell (2013)
• 2012 PEN/Malamud Award: James Salter (2012)
• Alan Cheuse & Alyson Foster (2012)
• Robert Stone and Lauren Groff (2012)
• Jeffrey Eugenides (2012)
• 2012 PEN/Faulkner Foundation Gala (2012)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Julie Otsuka (2012)
• Benjamin Percy and Dagoberto Gilb (2012)
• Gish Jen & Helen Simonson (2011)
• 2011 PEN/Malamud Award: Edith Pearlman (2011)
• Chris Adrian & Emma Donoghue (2011)
• R. Dwayne Betts, Ta-Nehisi Coates & E. Ethelbert Miller (2011)
• 2011 PEN/Faulkner Foundation Gala (2011)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Deborah Eisenberg (2011)
• Dorothy Allison & Ron Rash (2011)
• Joshua Ferris and Victor Lavalle (2011)
• Achy Obejas, Porochista Khakpour & Danzy Senna (2011)
• Myla Goldberg, Allegra Goodman & Monique Truong (2011)
• PEN/Malamud Award (2010)
• Samantha Hunt & Samantha Chang (2010)
• Colum McCann (2010)
• 2010 PEN/Faulkner Foundation Gala (2010)
• Richard Wilbur (2010)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Sherman Alexie (2010)
• W.S. Merwin (2010)
• Isabel Allende (2010)
• James Shapiro (2010)
• Vendela Vida & Heidi Julavits (2010)
• Ian McEwan (2010)
• Walter Mosley (2010)
• E.L. Doctorow & Ivy Meeropol (2010)
• Susan Orlean & George Saunders (2010)

2000s

• PEN Malamud Award (2009)
• Stacey D'Erasmo & Jonathan Lethem (2009)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Joseph O'Neill (2009)
• Calvin Trillin (2009)
• Chris Abani & lê thi diem thúy (2009)
• PEN Malamud Award (2008)
• The Undead: Toby Barlow, Max Brooks, and Grace Lee (2008)
• Russell Banks & Richard Russo (2008)
• PEN/Faulkner Gala 2008 (2008)
• Stephen Carter in Conversation with Walter Dellinger (2008)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: (2008)
• Frank McCourt & Alice McDermott (2008)
• The Three Kings: Stephen King, Tabitha King, & Owen King (2008)
• Edward P. Jones & Dinaw Mengetsu (2008)
• Azar Nafisi (2008)
• Thomas McGuane (2008)
• PEN Malamud Award (2007)
• Graphic Novels: Lynda Barry, Chris Ware, & Daniel Raeburn (2007)
• Cities at Night: Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, & Clarence Page (2007)
• PEN/Faulkner Gala 2007 (2007)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (2007)
• Portrait of the Artist of a Young Woman: Jennifer Egan, Gail Godwin, Kate Lehrer, & Deborah Tannen (2007)
• An Evening with Shirley Hazzard (2007)
• Shakespeare Reimagined: Charles Baxter and Elizabeth Nunez (2007)
• New Voices in American Literature: Kuwana Haulsey, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, and Porter Shreve (2007)
• An Evening with E.L. Doctorow (2007)
• PEN Malamud Award: Adam Haslett and Tobias Wolff (2006)
• Nicholas Delbanco & Al Young (2006)
• Mary Lee Settle Memorial Reading with Robert Stone (2006)
• Luis Alberto Urrea & Ana Menéndez (2006)
• PEN/Faulkner Gala 2006 (2006)
• William Faulkner Birthday Reading, New Orleans Night: Andrei Codrescu, Richard Ford, and Susan Richards Shreve (2006)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (2006)
• Larry Neal Award Ceremony (2006)
• Women in the World: Melissa Bank & Terry McMillan (2006)
• Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman (2006)
• The Exonerated: Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen (2006)
• A Tribute to Raymond Carver: Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, Jayne Anne Phillips, & Joy Williams (2006)
• Dream Me Home Safely: PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools Reading (2006)
• Collaborative Evening at the National Museum of the American Indian: N. Scott Momaday & Debra Magpie Earling (2005)
• PEN Malamud Award: Lorrie Moore (2005)
• Joan Didion (2005)
• Mothers and Daughters: Amy Tan, Marita Golden, & Mary Gordon (2005)
• PEN/Faulkner Gala 2005 (2005)
• William Faulkner Birthday Reading: Bebe Moore Campbell (2005)