Overview
- The Oct. 11 event at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie drew more than 800 attendees and centered on censorship in schools and libraries.
- Margaret Atwood accepted the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award and described book banning as a political power grab driven by anger.
- Other honorees included Juno Dawson, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, John Green, and Matthew A. Cherry with Vashti Harrison, while Texas librarian Becky Calzada received the Literary Freedom Award.
- Author Malinda Lo underscored the stakes for free speech and noted her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club is banned statewide in South Carolina.
- PEN America president Jennifer Finney Boylan and other speakers emphasized that recent bans often target LGBTQ+ themes, discussions of race, and references to sexuality, and warned of escalating attacks on librarians.