PEN Oakland

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PEN Oakland PEN Oakland is a chapter of PEN Center USA. Literature, though often national in origin, knows no frontiers.

PEN Oakland
MISSION STATEMENT

PEN Oakland pledges to do their utmost to dispel race, class and national hatreds, as well as to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace in the world. PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and the community to which they belong. In addition, through a series of symposia, we engage local and national media monitors in a dialogue so that greater understanding of non-traditional literature can be created and so that issues of censorship and stereotypes can be addressed. We hope that eventually reviews and criticism might come from a consciousness which understands the life out of which such works arise, and it is to that end that we present non-traditional literature and non-mainstream issues to the general public.

08/20/2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Tennessee Reed
[email protected]

PEN Oakland announces the winners of the Thirty-Seventh Annual
PEN OAKLAND AWARDS
Ceremony, Saturday, December 5, 2026, 2:00 P.M.


Oakland, CA—PEN Oakland announces the winners of the Thirty-Seventh Annual PEN OAKLAND AWARDS. The 2026 PEN Oakland Award winners will be formally recognized on Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 2:00 P.M., at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Avenue, Oakland, CA.

Called “The Blue Collar PEN” by The New York Times, and from the city that gave us Jack London, Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, Huey Newton, Floyd Salas, Gertrude Stein, Shawn Wong, William Wong, Sarah Fabio, Tommy Orange and where Anne Rice, Maya Angelou, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Chester Himes once lived, comes the scrappiest of book awards--one with no corporate ties. An award whose recipients are chosen by working writers, and not hedge fund operators or crypto technocrats.

The 2026 PEN Oakland Award Winners

The Ceremony will Go as Follows:

Josephine Miles Awards:
Walter Mosley
Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right: A King Oliver Novel
(Little, Brown and Company)

Kalehua Kim
Mele: Poems (Trio House Press)

Mac Crane
A Sharp Endless Need (The Dial Press)

C.J. Farley
Who Knows You by Heart (William Morrow)

Cathy Linh Che
Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press)

Devorah Major
Word Time (City Lights Books)

Michael Thomas
The Broken King (Grove Press)

Thea Matthews
Grime (City Lights Books)

Marcus Rediker
Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea (Viking)

Jack and Adelle Foley Award:
Peter Nicks, filmmaker

William Hearst, III, publisher of “Alta Magazine,” philanthropist
Reginald C. Martin Award for Excellence in Criticism:
Playthell Benjamin, public intellectual

Gary Webb Anti-Censorship Award:
Paul Cobb, publisher of “The Oakland Post”

Boots Riley, filmmaker, rapper, activist and community organizer

Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award:
Wesley Brown, novelist

Carolyn Forche, poet



The 2026 Board of Directors of PEN Oakland
Opal Palmer Adisa, Robert Mailer Anderson, Carla Blank, Judith Cody, Lucille Lang Day,
Cheryl Fabio, Emil Guillermo, Judy Juanita, Herb Kohl, D. Scot Miller, Linda Noel,
Ishmael Reed, Tennessee Reed, Tess Taylor, Maw Shein Win, Michael Young

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Oakland, CA

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