Michigan’s Forest Hills Public School District is standing by a book about a boy who likes to wear dresses, despite one parent’s complaint that it does not present a “normal way” of life. A teacher read Morris Micklewhite and the…
Author: Maren Williams
Writers and Readers Come Together to Support Jailed Egyptian Novelist
In a letter sent this week to Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, PEN America and more than 120 writers and artists from around the world demanded the release of novelist Ahmed Naji, currently sentenced to two years in prison for…
Japanese “Vagina Kayak” Artist Fined for Distributing 3D Plans Online
A Japanese court yesterday imposed a fine of 400,000 yen (about $3,667) on artist Megumi Igarashi for distributing 3D plans of her own genitals via the Internet. The plans were among the premiums in her crowdfunding campaign, which raised money…
Eisner Grants Support Graphic Novels in Libraries
Libraries in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Columbia, South Carolina, were recently chosen as the winners of the 2016 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grants for Libraries, funded by the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation and administered by the American…
Zunar and Gado Win Cartooning for Peace Prize
In recognition of their respective fights against censorship and repressive governments, political cartoonists Zunar and Gado have been jointly awarded the biennial International Editorial Cartoons Prize from the organization Cartooning for Peace. In conjunction with the prize, their work and…
This One Summer Banned in Minnesota School
The award-winning and critically acclaimed graphic novel This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki has been banned from the single K-12 school in the small town of Henning, Minnesota. According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom,…
U.S. State Department No Fan of Manga and Anime
The U.S. Department of State recently joined the United Nations in suggesting that Japan should restrict certain types of manga and anime, condemning what it calls “unfettered availability of sexually explicit cartoons, comics, and video games, some of which depicted…
ATENA FREE!
Fantastic news from Iran today: after nearly 18 months in prison for drawing a cartoon, Atena Farghadani has been released! Farghadani’s sentence had recently been reduced on appeal from the original 12 years and 9 months, but even her lawyer…
VICTORY in Kentucky: Looking for Alaska Stays in Curriculum
In a victory for the freedom to read, a school district review committee in Marion County, Kentucky voted last night to keep John Green’s Looking for Alaska in the high school curriculum. The book had been challenged by a parent…
Turkish Journalists Sentenced to Two Years for Reprinting Charlie Hebdo Cover
Two Turkish journalists were sentenced to two years in prison last week for republishing the post-attack Charlie Hebdo cover that depicted the Prophet Mohammed. Hikmet Cetinkaya and Ceyda Karan, both columnists for the Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, are appealing their…