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The 2012 PEN World Voices Festival ended with a talk about censorship at the Cooper Union by novelist Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses). After the speech, the PEN festival founder had a conversation with writer Gary Shteyngart (The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Super Sad True Love Story). Peter Godwin, the president of PEN American Center, and Laszlo Jakab Orsos, PEN World Voices Director, introduced Rushdie before he gave the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture that traditionally wraps up the festival.   Listen to and download Rushdie's 17-minute talk by clicking the audio link above. Bon Mots: Rushdie on censorship: "If writing is Thing, then censorship is No-Thing. And as King Lear told Cordelia, 'Nothing will come of nothing.' Think again. Censorship changes the subject. It introduces a more tedious subject and creates a more boring world." Rushdie on liberty: "Liberty is the air we breathe...in a part of the world where, imperfect as the supply is, it is, nevertheless, freely available—at least to those of us who are not black youngsters wearing hoodies in Miami, and broadly breathable—unless, of course, we’re women in red states trying to make free choices about our own bodies." Rushdie on originality: "Great art, or, let’s just say, more modestly, original art is never created in the safe middle ground, but always at the edge ... Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes, disrespects sacred cows or other such entities. It can be shocking, or ugly, or, to use that catch-all term so beloved of the tabloid press, controversial." Watch a video of Rushdie speaking at the talk.

Earlier in May, Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief for the Slate group, and author Jennifer Egan discussed Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, genre-busting novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, and her writing process at The New School. Their conversation was part of the annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Bon Mots Weisberg on the incredible likability of A Visit from the Goon Squad: “The thing about this book is I don’t know anybody who disliked it. You can get an argument going at any dinner party if you just say ‘Jonathan Franzen’ and at least somebody will take the contrary position. But I have yet to find somebody who read this and wasn’t impressed by it." Egan on the mysterious P.M., to whom she dedicated A Visit from the Goon Squad: “You’re killing me with these questions! I feel as though I really should have had a warning. I am going to come out and answer that … It is my long-time therapist.” Egan on developing her characters: “I’m really bad at trying to use people I know. I wish I could use them. But I’m sure most people I know are [so] happy that I can’t!” Download the audio of the talk above or watch a video of the talk:

New Orleans manages to leave a mark, good or bad, on its tourists, natives, and those who've decided to take up roots there. Most people who visit have a great time, but many can attest to how the city's unique insular culture, history and traditions can be as frustrating as they are fascinating. As part of the 2011 Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature, five distinguished New Orleans writers — Sarah Broom, Richard Campanella, Nicholas Lemann, Fatima Sheik and Billy Sothern — read selections from their recently published books and essays. Through their writing, each author has made sense of the nuanced complexities that make up this Louisiana port city. Panel moderator and novelist Nathanial Rich called the discussion a manifesto to the city. Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the flurry of positive national media attention has helped create the impression that all is well in the Big Easy. But the city is still fraught with problems. In conversations about New Orlean's stark contradictions, emotions run high and opinions are strong. The five fiction and nonfiction writers participating in the PEN discussion are either originally from or currently living in New Orleans. Each has devoted his or her work to erasing the city's fairytale image and telling the true story of its past, present and future. At the end of the workshop, the participants issued a statement with suggestions on what PEN could do to improve education in New Orleans. Bon Mots: Billy Sothern, a New Orleans anti-death penalty lawyer and author of "Down in New Orleans: Reflections From a Drowned City," on understanding New Orleans: "I think there are many who view NOLA as this exceptional place and some of them are the city’s biggest fans. But I argue that instead of its exceptionalism, the rest of America needs to be concerned with New Orleans because it's highly representative of the problems of the rest of the country ... These kinds of issues are coming to a neighborhood near you — they may already have but they are going to get worse. Instead of a metaphor, I think it's important to not say we have this 'New Orleans problem' with the schools and crime. Instead, we have this 'American problem' that is tragically magnified in the city of New Orleans." Nicholas Lemann, a New Orleans native, staff writer for The New Yorker (among other magazines), and Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, on race: "The fabled white elite that controls everything in New Orleans are probably the least powerful white elite than you'd find in any big city in the country. Not because someone took their power away, but for various cultural reasons. New Orleans has no locally controlled major economic institutions, so the infamous New Orleans white elite does not have the inclination to do what one would want done in New Orleans. And if they had the inclination, they would not be able to do them." Sarah Broom, a New Orleans native who wrote "A Yellow House in New Orleans," on local pride: "I think this 'love of place' is really just from people who are stuck in a lots of ways. There were very few opportunities for [career] advancement. It's almost impossible for a highly-educated person to move back to New Orleans and find some sort of intellectual rigor. That is just the truth. Part of it is that Hurricane Katrina forced a lot of people from New Orleans and now they don't want to come back. This population of people who can't come back because they can't afford to are also made up of people who don't actually want to return." Fatima Shaik, who is the author of four books of fiction set in Louisiana, on writing about New Orleans: "I think writers after Katrina were thrust into the roles of sociologists. People who are from New Orleans are likely to write about it. I think those people who are not from the city and want to write about it should focus on writing across the cultures and writing accurately. People don't have a conversation across cultures. Writers can do that."

While PEN is often at the forefront of debates and initiatives to do with the more obvious forms of oppression against writers — isolation, censorship, imprisonment — it is also ready to tackle the more subtle deterrents that plague the publishing industry as a whole. In a panel at the Standard Hotel as part of the PEN World Voices Festival, writers and editors talked about the ways in which corporate publishing limited access to audiences, the pressure to mainstream, and editing as a form of censorship. The evening was moderated by Mischief + Mayhem co-founder Lisa Dierbeck, who fueled debate by "impersonating" a corporate publishing executive and goaded her panelists ("the enemy") to confirm that they planned to overthrow her world. Speakers included writers Carmen Boullosa, Dale Peck (also a co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem), Mkola Riabchuk, and Monika Zgustova; writer and editor Ben Greenman, and Feminist Press editor Amy Scholder. The independent tone was set early in the evening by critic Eric Banks. As part of the festival this year, PEN asked six critics to each recommend five books representing works in translation, contemporary fiction, literary classics, small press publications, and something to surprise. All the Stand-up Book Critics recommendations can be found at this link, but Banks' surprise choice of Edward Said's last book, "On Late Style," resonated with the festival as a whole: "In an era when too many are eager to see the humanities as an anachronism, 'On Late Style' is a stylish retort."  Bon Mots: Amy Scholder on what matters: "My relationship to my authors is primary to me — and then there's the business of books after that." Carmen Boullosa on books by emerging Latino authors: "The novels are prodigious, different...I would even use the word, 'insurgent.' They are like little revolutions. I enter the book(s) and say, 'Wow!'" Dale Peck on the effects of a corporate takeover: "The more von Holtzbrinck got involved [with Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux], the more I was told things like my books needed to be happier, or they needed to be shorter...because paper was expensive."

[This episode first aired January 23, 2010.]Good poetry is even better when you read it aloud. For his anthology, "Essential Pleasures" http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Pleasures-Anthology-Poems-Aloud/dp/0393066088, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky selected works with just that in mind. Martha and Grant discuss a poem from the book with lines that are more delicious when spoken. Also this week: If a woman decides to keep her own name after getting married, should she be addressed as "Ms. or Mrs."? When you were young, what did you call "your favorite blanket"? When do you "redd up" the table, and what does it mean to be "out like Lottie's eye"?The hosts talk about some verses from "Essential Pleasures" http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20680, Robert Pinsky's anthology of poems meant to be read aloud. If a woman decides to keep her own name after getting married, should she be addressed as "Ms." or "Mrs."?"Don't be frontin'!" A Texas college student is curious about the origin of "fronting," and learns that it goes back several decades to the world of petty criminals.What can go "up a chimney down, but not down a chimney up"? Martha has that riddle's answer.Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a happy time with a word puzzle whose answers all include the word "happy." Try this: "The nickname of Xaviera Hollander, as derived from the title of her bestselling 1971 memoir."When you were small, did you have a favorite blanket? If so, what'd you call it? A "woobie"? A "blankie"? A listener says her grandmother called hers an "ookoosh," and wonders if the word reflects grandma's Czech roots. If you're driving and need to turn 180 degrees, you make a U-turn. But what do you make if you speak a language that doesn't include the letter "U"? If you're a Hindi speaker, what do you call wearing a V-neck sweater in an A-frame house?When someone's fast asleep, a Texan might say that he's "out like Lottie's eye." But who's Lottie and what happened to her eye? Some children don't talk until they're age three or older, then go on to do just fine. Why do some kids start speaking relatively late in life? The hosts talk about a recent Ask Metafilter http://ask.metafilter.com/139980/Why-didnt-I-say-anything-until-I-was-three thread on that topic.Is there a word that describes someone who's good at visualizing how best to pack a suitcase or car? A Michigan woman is sure she heard such a term for someone who can visualize 3-D arrangements in advance, but darned if she can recall what it is. Can the hosts help?A Connecticut listener is suspicious of a Wikipedia entry that claims the slang term "homie" derives from Latin "homo," meaning man.The Spanish phrase "Donde lloran, está al muerto" literally translates as "Where there's crying, there's a dead person." In everyday use, however, the meaning is somewhat different. You might use it, for example, to describe someone who claims not to have money when in fact he does. A bilingual caller wonders if there's an analogous expression that refers to someone who's miserly despite being wealthy. Grant recommends he check out "A Dictionary of Mexican-American Proverbs" http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Mexican-American-Proverbs/dp/0313253854 by Mark Glazer.Another riddle I'm taken from a mine and shut up in a wooden case from which I'm never released, yet I'm used by almost everybody. Who am I?"Redd up the table"! A California listener says he remembers hearing that all the time when growing up in Iowa, but now that he's on the West Coast, no one has any idea what he's talking about.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2011, Wayword LLC.

For the final word on grammar, many writers turn to the Associated Press Stylebook http://www.apstylebook.com/. But if you find that stylebook too stuffy, you'll love 'Fake AP Stylebook' http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook, the online send-up that features such sage journalistic advice 'The plural of apostrophe is 'apostrophe's.'' Grant and Martha share some favorite 'rules' from that guide. Also this week: Why are offices and apartments named after landscapes and wildlife that are nowhere to be seen? Is it correct to use the phrase 'a whole nother'? And what's the difference, if any, between a 'naturalist' and a 'biologist'?Grant and Martha share some of their favorite tweets from 'Fake AP Stylebook' http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook, the Twitter feed that tweaks journalistic style and tropes, such as 'Do not change weight of gorilla in phrase, '800-lb gorilla in the room.' Correct weight is 800 lbs. DO NOT CHANGE GORILLA'S WEIGHT!'Natural names for unnatural objects. Why do subdivisions and office complexes have names invoking landscapes and animals that don't exist there? A Fort Wayne, Indiana, listener got to wondering about this after passing the 'Bay View Apartments' in her hometown: there's not a bay in sight. Here's the Billy Collins poem on that topic, 'The Golden Years' http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20415.What's happening linguistically when someone's using the second-person singular possessive in a list of items? A Charlottesville, Virginia, caller began wondering that recently after hearing a wood-flooring salesperson say, 'You got your maple, you got your cherry, you got your oak...'Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game featuring 'Tom Swifties,' those sentences that include a self-referentially funny adverb, such this one: ''Ow! You guys really know how to hurt a vampire,' Tom said _____________.'A Chicago man says he was caught up short when he caught himself writing the words 'a whole nother.' Is nother really a word? The book Grant recommends on the topic is 'Everything You Know about English is Wrong' http://everythingyouknowaboutenglishiswrong.com/, by Bill Brohaugh.Anyone ever hear the expression 'Thinkers uppers, thinkers it'? It means 'If you're going to mention something that should be done, then do it yourself.' 'Riddle time'! What English word can have four of its five letters removed and still retain its original pronunciation?A man who takes daily walks in the woods of upstate New York wants a word for the whooshing of the pines high above his head. The hosts suggest the Latin-based word 'susurration' http://www.wordnik.com/words/susurration, although they might also have suggested 'soughing' http://www.wordnik.com/words/sough.Martha and Grant share listeners' emails about language changes in the mouths of train conductors and military drill instructors.What does the 'O'' in Irish names like O'Malley or O'Riley mean?What's the difference, if any, between a naturalist and a biologist? Naturalists do it with their clothes off and biologists do it under a microscope? (Kidding!)Grant talks about the new slang term, 'zaprudering'  http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/18/zaprudering-the-invite-obsessive-fun-with-tuaw/, as in 'The fanboys get off on zaprudering the invite to the Apple product-release press conference.'A group of student architects who want their acronym to be 'CASA' have a question. Is it more grammatical to call it the 'Chicano Architecture Student Association' or 'Chicano Architectural Student Association'?Grant shares some odd high school team mascot names, including the Wooden Shoes and the Battling Bathers.This program is listener-supported. If you'd like to drop a few bucks in the tip jar http://waywordradio.org/donate, we'd be grateful. [This episode first aired January 29, 2010.]For the final word on grammar, many writers turn to the Associated Press Stylebook http://www.apstylebook.com/. But if you find that stylebook too stuffy, you'll love "Fake AP Stylebook" http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook, the online send-up that features such sage journalistic advice "The plural of apostrophe is 'apostrophe's.'" Grant and Martha share some favorite "rules" from that guide. Also this week: Why are offices and apartments named after landscapes and wildlife that are nowhere to be seen? Is it correct to use the phrase "a whole nother"? And what's the difference, if any, between a "naturalist" and a "biologist"?Grant and Martha share some of their favorite tweets from "Fake AP Stylebook" http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook, the Twitter feed that tweaks journalistic style and tropes, such as "Do not change weight of gorilla in phrase, '800-lb gorilla in the room.' Correct weight is 800 lbs. DO NOT CHANGE GORILLA'S WEIGHT!"Natural names for unnatural objects. Why do subdivisions and office complexes have names invoking landscapes and animals that don't exist there? A Fort Wayne, Indiana, listener got to wondering about this after passing the "Bay View Apartments" in her hometown: there's not a bay in sight. Here's the Billy Collins poem on that topic, "The Golden Years" http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20415.What's happening linguistically when someone's using the second-person singular possessive in a list of items? A Charlottesville, Virginia, caller began wondering that recently after hearing a wood-flooring salesperson say, "You got your maple, you got your cherry, you got your oak..."Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game featuring "Tom Swifties," those sentences that include a self-referentially funny adverb, such this one: "'Ow! You guys really know how to hurt a vampire,' Tom said _____________."A Chicago man says he was caught up short when he caught himself writing the words "a whole nother." Is nother really a word? The book Grant recommends on the topic is "Everything You Know about English is Wrong" http://everythingyouknowaboutenglishiswrong.com/, by Bill Brohaugh.Anyone ever hear the expression "Thinkers uppers, thinkers it"? It means "If you're going to mention something that should be done, then do it yourself." "Riddle time"! What English word can have four of its five letters removed and still retain its original pronunciation?A man who takes daily walks in the woods of upstate New York wants a word for the whooshing of the pines high above his head. The hosts suggest the Latin-based word "susurration" http://www.wordnik.com/words/susurration, although they might also have suggested "soughing" http://www.wordnik.com/words/sough.Martha and Grant share listeners' emails about language changes in the mouths of train conductors and military drill instructors.What does the "O'" in Irish names like O'Malley or O'Riley mean?What's the difference, if any, between a naturalist and a biologist? Naturalists do it with their clothes off and biologists do it under a microscope? (Kidding!)Grant talks about the new slang term, "zaprudering"  http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/18/zaprudering-the-invite-obsessive-fun-with-tuaw/, as in "The fanboys get off on zaprudering the invite to the Apple product-release press conference."A group of student architects who want their acronym to be "CASA" have a question. Is it more grammatical to call it the "Chicano Architecture Student Association" or "Chicano Architectural Student Association"?Grant shares some odd high school team mascot names, including the Wooden Shoes and the Battling Bathers.This program is listener-supported. If you'd like to drop a few bucks in the tip jar http://waywordradio.org/donate, we'd be grateful. --A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2010, Wayword Inc.       

Coffee House to Go episode #28. Welcome to Coffee House to Go -- ESC! Magazine's monthly Podcast for writers and the Small Press community featuring readings of poetry, short fiction, interviews and reviews as well as featured music from independent bands and musicians.Opening music excerpt by Uma Floresta, "Almost Everything."Your Hosts:Michael Potter - ESC! Magazine and the ESC!Cast NetworkLB Sedlacek - The Poetry Market E-zine and lbsedlacek.comShow Topics:> Is Traditional Print Media Doomed?> Paulo Coelho Pirates His Own Books> Can Cell Phones Save Books?> NEA Literature Publications> Poems About Aliens> 100 Books Every Child Should ReadPicks of the Show:> LB - Celestial Seasonings Book Club> Mike - WOWIOLinks to Know:> NIU Memorial> Barzso Playsets - Tales of Robin Hood Playset> The Sword and Laser Book Club / Podcast> The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian> Assume Nothing Press> Jack Hosley's Wander Radio> BradP's Whole Lot of NonsenseBooks Mentioned in the Show:> The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson> Peony In Love by Lisa See> The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis> The Saga of Erik the Viking by Terry Jones> The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling> Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne and Ernest H. ShepardClosing music excerpt by Simpatico, "Santa Claudia"Subscribe to our Podcast Feed orDownload the show here! Play Now: CHTG_28_20080217 (57'02 26.1mb 64kbps)