Joanne Leedom-Ackerman

Fiction • Essays • Journalism

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About the Author

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her fiction includes regional bestseller The Dark Path to the River and No Marble Angels. She has also published fiction and essays in books and anthologies, including Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement and Remembering Arthur Miller.

A former reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, Joanne has won awards for her nonfiction and published hundreds of articles in newspapers and magazines, including World Literature Today and international commentary in The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, GlobalPost, and others. READ FULL BIO

Time and Tides:

Joanne’s Blog

PEN Journey 10: WiPC: Beware of Principles

PEN International celebrates its Centenary in 2021. I have been active in PEN for more than 30 years in various positions, including as Vice President, International Secretary and Chair of International PEN’S Writers in Prison Committee. With memories stirring and file drawers bulging, I am a bit of a walking archive and have been asked by PEN International to write down memories. In digestible portions I will recount moments and hope this personal PEN journey may be of interest.

 

 

In the summer of 1993 before taking over the Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee I studied hundreds of individual cases on PEN’s list of over 900 cases which was published twice a year. I studied the regions of the world where conflict was rife, where governments were most oppressive and where writers were most threatened. I also used the time to conceive three long term projects because I knew when the job began, there would be less time for long term thinking…READ FULL POST