Award-Winning Author and Fairfield Professor Phil Klay Named President of PEN America

Phil Klay, award-winning author, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and professor of religious studies and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program in the John Charles Meditz College of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed president of PEN America, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and supporting writers worldwide.

“I’m humbled and honored by it,” Klay said. “I’ve always tremendously admired PEN’s work, which is so central to the core values of my life.”

Founded in 1922, PEN America brings together more than 4,500 writers and other literary professionals, including novelists, journalists, playwrights, and poets. The organization advocates for freedom of expression and works to defend the rights of writers and readers.

Klay said he is particularly looking forward to working alongside others who share PEN America’s commitment to literature and free expression.

“Working with people who fervently believe in the power of free expression and in great writing,” he said, is what he is most looking forward to in the new role.

Klay brings extensive experience as an author and educator to his new role. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he is the author of the short story collection Redeployment, which won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre. The collection was also named one of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2014.

His novel Missionaries was named one of The Wall Street Journal’s 10 best books of 2020 and was included on former President Barack Obama’s list of the best books of the year. His nonfiction work received the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category of Cultural & Historical Criticism in 2018. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the Brookings Institution’s Brookings Essay series. His essay collection, Uncertain Ground, was published by Penguin Press in 2022.

A National Literary Role, Rooted in Fairfield

Klay’s appointment comes as he also begins a new leadership role at Fairfield. Earlier this month, he was named director of the Fairfield Meditz Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.

As MFA director, Klay will lead a program he already knows well as a faculty member and writer. He said one of the aspects of the program he most looks forward to is its distinctive community.

“At the end of every semester we conduct a residency on the beautiful Enders Island, just off the coast of Mystic, Connecticut, and the community that we build there is truly special,” Klay said. “I’m looking forward to my first residency as director and spending time with students and faculty who have repeatedly shown their commitment to each other and to literature.”

His two new leadership roles are closely connected by a shared set of values, Klay said. His work with PEN America will inform his approach to teaching, while his experience with students and emerging writers at Fairfield will continue to shape his perspective as a literary leader.

“The values which I hope to advocate for at PEN are the values that I bring to my teaching a wide range of students seeking to find language for what matters to them most,” he said.

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