The Eleanor Roosevelt Center in partnership with PEN America, presents the 2025 Banned Book Awards!
The ceremony will celebrate authors and activists who are bravely fighting, in the face of censorship, for the right to have their incredible stories heard. The Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature recognize authors whose works advance human rights amid a surge in book bans.
This year’s Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement honoree is best-selling author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), who will be accepting the award in person.
Becky Calzada, a Texas Librarian and co-founding member of Texas #FReadom Fighters, will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Literary Freedom Award.
This year’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Bravery in Literature recipients include:
● Matthew A. Cherry & Vashti Harrison for Hair Love.
● Juno Dawson for This Book Is Gay (video acceptance)
● John Green for Looking for Alaska (video acceptance)
● Malinda Lo for Last Night at the Telegraph Club
● Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell for And Tango Makes Three
The awardees will be joined on stage by leaders in the field, including:
● Jennifer Finney Boylan (Keynote), Author and President of PEN America
● Deborah Caldwell Stone, Director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom
● Cameron Samuels, Executive Director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT).
Books by the honorees will be available for purchase courtesy of Oblong Books.
For more information about the awardees and the Eleanor Roosevelt Center, please visit:
https://ervk.org/banned-books/.
This event is sponsored by:
● Freedom to Read Foundation
You may also like the following events from Bardavon Presents:
- This month, 17th August, 07:00 pm, Devon Allman's Blues Summit featuring Jimmy Hall, Larry McCray, & Sierra Green in Kingston
- Next month, 21st September, 07:00 pm, Napoleon Dynamite Live! 20th Anniversary Celebration in Kingston
- Next month, 24th September, 07:00 pm, Ken Follett - Circle of Days in Poughkeepsie
Also check out other
Arts events in Poughkeepsie,
Literary Art events in Poughkeepsie.
