Jennifer Finney Boylan’s Opening Remarks at the 2025 PEN America Literary Gala

PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan opened the 2025 PEN America Literary Gala with the following remarks.

Good evening. And welcome to the 2025 PEN America Literary Gala!!

Here’s a little story I call “The Metamorphosis.”  

Ready? On January 21st of this year, I woke up from restless dreams to find myself transformed into a hideous vermin.  

Actually, what had happened was that, the day before, Donald Trump had been inaugurated. And declared, by executive order, that after two and a half decades, I was back to being a man again. Yikes.

First time in 25 years, I didn’t have to ask for directions when I got lost.  

Although, you know who it was hardest on? My wife, Deedie. After all this time, she was back in a heterosexual marriage. I mean, I just felt so bad for her. You know, like, what were the neighbors going to say?

This whole spring I’ve been living in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s governing philosophy–namely, the idea that you can make things that you don’t like disappear by covering your eyes and pretending that they don’t exist. 

I call it the Peek A Boo Baby Philosophy of Governing. You know, like when your kids were little, and you’d cover your eyes, and go, Where’s the baby? There he is! Nice. 

But guess what? 

There are still transgender people in this country, and we are real. And there are queer and nonbinary people in this country, and they are real.  

There are people of color in this country, and they are real. There is a history of slavery, and racism, in this country, and it is real.  

There are immigrants in this country, and the children of immigrants, and we are real. 

Every last soul in America is real. No one can be erased just because others close their eyes, or, worse, attempt to ban the books that contain the stories about their lives.  

I think, to be fair, all of us have been struggling with some version of the metamorphosis this year, as we have watched our country transform before our eyes. But as writers we also know that the most important part of our work is not the first draft, but the revision.  

And so I can tell you plain: Donald Trump will not be the author of the final draft of this country. That’s our job– the job of novelists, and poets, and translators, and playwrights, and publishers, and above all– readers. 

But in order for writers to create a better draft of this country, we need to know: PEN America has our back.  

It can be a solitary business, writing. Most of the time we work alone, with no one to turn to for counsel except for the voices inside our heads. 

But standing up for the freedom to write…protecting the freedom to express yourself, and to make art… That is a task that we can only do together.   

Which, again, is why we at PEN America are so grateful to you all for being here tonight, in this beautiful room, beneath this beautiful giant whale.  

Let’s take a moment to celebrate the people who made this evening happen: our gala co-chairs: Colette Bennett, Dinaw Mengestu and Jodi Picoult, our honorary chairs Markus Dohle and Anya Salama, and our secret weapon, Roxanne Donovan. Also known as Batgirl. 

And on a personal note, I want to thank a guest at my table tonight, the governor of my home state of Maine, the right honorable Governor Janet Mills.   

She said she would see him in court – and she did. And after she won the first round in court, the administration backed down and resumed funding free meals to Maine’s school kids.

Thanks guv’nah. 

Hey: do you know this poem by Langston Hughes?  

Surely all of us want to create a country like the one described in Langston Hughes’ poem, a country in which America is the place we dream it might become. 

But I also admit that there are times when— with apologies to both Langston Hughes as well as Fleetwood Mac– I get tired of thinking about tomorrow. I get tired of waiting, and waiting, and dreaming. 

There are times when what I long for, in fact, is to wake up. 

I want to wake up, for instance, in a country where the cadets at the US Naval Academy and West Point—our future officers and diplomats—are exposed to a wide range of ideas, including those that they might disagree with, in hopes that the universe of literature and story will encourage them to embrace the power of the imagination. 

I want to wake up in a country in which professors at institutions of higher learning, from Harvard to Bob Jones University, are free to teach ideas that will make their students’ hearts and minds larger, not smaller. I want to wake up. 

I want to wake up in a country in which it is possible to criticize the Israeli government without being called anti-Semitic. I want to wake up in a country in which it is possible to condemn Hamas without being called anti-Palestinian. I want to wake up in a country in which dissent is just another form of patriotism, a country in which criticism of our government is something we engage in not because we hate America, but because with all our hearts, we love it. 

Above all, I want to wake up in a country in which we are governed by the rule of law, rather than the whims of, well, you know: a giant whale.  

 My father—a Republican if ever there was one—used to have a ritual at the end of our Thanksgiving meals. 

He’d provoke us to debate whatever the issues of the day were, from the Nixon pardon to the Equal Rights Amendment. 

And then, at a certain point, he’d ding his fork against his wine glass, and say, “All right now, everybody argue the opposite.” 

It was only by trying to faithfully articulate the opinions of people with whom I disagreed that I developed what Edmund Burke called a moral imagination—that is, the ability to do what Atticus commands Scout to do—and walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. 

Will you do that with me right now? 

Take your fork and ding it against the side of your glass. Let’s make this whole room ring. Go ahead, do it.

 You hear that? 

That’s the sound of all of us embracing the promise of the First Amendment.  

That’s the sound of artists and readers waking up, and getting on with our own next draft: one in which, with hope and faith, we can make America, America again.

PEN America is grateful for your support, for your imagination, and for your love. 

Thanks.