The PEN Ten is PEN America’s weekly interview series. This week Ken Chen, executive director at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, speaks to historian, journalist, and playwright Jeff Biggers, whose book, Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition, was published this year by Counterpoint.

Full interview:
https://pen.org/pen-ten-interview-jef...

1. How does your identity shape your writing? Is there such a thing as “the writer’s identity”?
My new book looks at the role of writers—writers of resistance, in many respects. Revolutionary author Thomas Paine, who published poetry, parables, short stories, songs, as well as news stories in his Philadelphia magazine, declared the “universal empire is the prerogative of the writer.” He added for good measure: “The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy.” I’d agree with that. In the mid-19th century, African-American writer Maria Stewart methodically embraced her role as a writer of the resistance, publishing essays—not sermons—and performing them in counterspaces that had been reserved for white versions of abolition. “O woman, woman! upon you I call,” Stewart appealed, “for upon your exertions almost entirely depends whether the rising generation shall be anything more than we have or not. “