Playwright Ayad Akhtar on stage at the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards in his role as then-president of the organization.

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Playwright Ayad Akhtar on stage at the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards in his role as then-president of the organization.

Beowulf Sheehan/PEN America

This story has been updated.

Playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner tells NPR he will donate the $25,000 purse that comes with the PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award, for which he is this year’s recipient.

In an email, the Pulitzer Prize, Tony and Emmy-winning writer said that when he receives the award, “I will donate half the money to Jewish Voice for Peace and half to UNRWA, earmarked for relief work in Gaza.” Kushner is a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace advisory board.

Kushner is one of many artists who’ve called for a ceasefire in Gaza. In an interview with the Haaretz Podcast in March, he said, “If you had asked me, even on October 7, would Israel allow, 30,000 people, many of them civilians, to be killed by the IDF I would have said no.”

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza. Israel invaded Gaza in response to an attack by the militant organization Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

A production of Kushner’s Angels in America is currently on stage in Tel Aviv. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s Munich which is getting renewed attention in light of Israel’s war with Hamas.

“In both his art and activism, Tony Kushner compels us to confront uncomfortable truths about the 21st century,” PEN America wrote in its announcement, “helping us feel our way towards a better future and aspire toward a more just and compassionate world.”

The PEN/Mike Nichols honor is one of PEN America’s career achievement awards. “The winner is selected by an internal, anonymous judging panel,” according to the organization.

PEN America literary awards ceremony canceled

PEN America canceled its annual literary awards ceremony after nearly half of the writers and translators nominated withdrew their books from consideration.

The awards will still be granted to those who did not withdraw, though the ceremony, which was scheduled for Monday, April 29 in New York, will not go on. Writer and comedian Jena Friedman had been lined up to host the event.

An open letter signed by a number of writers to PEN America’s leadership reads, “We reject these honors conferred by your organization in protest of your failure to confront the genocide in Gaza.”

They contend that PEN America was slow to denounce “the incomparable loss of Palestinian life” and that when the organization finally did, its statement lacked “proportional empathy.”

“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” said Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, PEN America’s head of literary programming, in a statement. “As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”

In February, Palestinian-American writer Randa Jarrar was dragged out of a PEN America event in Los Angeles after she and other writers used a portable speaker to play the names of writers and poets killed in Gaza. The event featured actor Mayim Bialik, who has supported Israel on social media.

The PEN America awards come with different-sized cash prizes. The foundation behind the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award said that Stein was a “passionate advocate for Palestinian rights” and said that it had directed PEN to donate the unawarded $75,000 to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

PEN said that winners who did not withdraw from consideration will receive their cash prizes, including playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, who will be honored with the PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award.

This story was edited by Jennifer Vanasco.

On June 12, California will open its first new state park in nearly a decade, setting aside 1,600 acres near the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers in the San Joaquin Valley.

The park will give visitors a glimpse of what the valley’s waterways were like before the arrival of agriculture, but it will be a while before the site offers many activities. Or has a name.

The site is known as Dos Rios, but state officials have yet to officially name it. It sits eight miles west of Modesto, amid dairy farms and almond orchards, and is considered the largest public-private floodplain restoration project in the state.

State parks officials said that beginning June 12, visitors will be able to take escorted hikes on some areas of the property and use about a dozen newly placed picnic tables and shade structures.

But many activities will need to wait. Officials are still seeking public input and making plans for other possible activities, including biking, swimming, fishing and nonmotorized boating.

“We’re still growing,” park manager Paige Haller said. Haller said the park would open with three full-time interpretive employees and be open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Visitors will be able to reserve guided visits, Haller said, on a soon-to-be-unveiled park website.

Temporary restroom facilities are in place. A prefab “welcome center,” about the size of a trailer, is due to open by year’s end, to be followed eventually by a larger visitor center.

Once a dock is in place at the park’s main pond, Haller said, “We’re planning on having nonmotorized boating” and fishing, perhaps by the end of 2025.

There will be no entrance fee at the beginning, Haller said, adding, “We expect that to happen in the next couple of years.”

The property, formerly known as the Dos Rios Ranch, includes eight miles of river; a long, oxbow-shaped pond; a barn; several farm buildings that will be adapted to new uses; and about 20 miles of ranch roads, many of which likely will become trails.

The property was run as a dairy and cattle ranch for decades, with a series of berms separating the rivers from the rest of the land, before it was acquired in 2012 by the California conservation nonprofit River Partners. River Partners planted vegetation, removed the berms in 2018 and began a transfer of the property to the state in 2023.

A River Partners analysis of the property found species including riparian woodrat, Swainson’s hawk, least Bell’s vireo, yellow warbler, sandhill crane and “an entire suite of neotropical migratory songbirds.” In waters near the restoration site, River Partners has documented spawning Chinook salmon, steelhead trout and white sturgeon. The park is neighbored by the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge.

Before this, the last new state park unit to be unveiled was Eastern Kern County Onyx Ranch State Vehicular Recreation Area, opened in November 2014. The Dos Rios park will be the 281st unit in a system that covers nearly 1.4 million acres and includes almost 15,000 campsites and 3,000 miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails.

The Dos Rios park’s name is to be determined and approved in coming meetings of the California State Park and Recreation Commission. Its next meetings are June 11 and Sept. 11. Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke at the Dos Rios site on Monday as part of an Earth Day celebration.

The Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers both carry snowmelt from the Sierra into agricultural areas of the Central Valley. The 366-mile San Joaquin River, longest in the valley, eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean by way of Suisun Bay and San Francisco Bay.

Adam Moss allowed NPR into a space only two other people have seen: his painting studio.

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Adam Moss

Adam Moss allowed NPR into a space only two other people have seen: his painting studio.

Adam Moss

In a small brick building in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, you can find Adam Moss’s “den of torture.”

Prior to this interview, almost no one has been allowed in.

“Just my husband and my teacher. That’s it.” Moss said. “Two people in my entire life and I’ve had this thing for five years. So welcome.”

This space is less menacing than most dens of torture; there aren’t any medieval instruments of pain after all. Instead, the small, light-filled room overflows with brushes and palettes, and paintings of various sizes and stages of completion rest on every surface.

Adam Moss’ so-called “den of torture.” Instead of Medieval instruments of torture, he has paintbrushes and palettes.

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When Adam Moss gave up his job as editor-in-chief of New York Magazine five years ago, he started painting. He loved it, but it was agonizing.

“I really wanted to be good, and it made the act of making art so frustrating for me,” said Moss. “This [studio] is where I come many days and wrestle with trying to make something.”

Trying to make something is exactly the subject of Adam Moss’s new book, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing.

“The book is called The Work of Art,” says Moss. “And that is kind of what it’s about.”

It’s about the work.

Adam Moss’ The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing features interviews with more than 40 creatives about their process, from blank page to final product.

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The book has 43 chapters, each one dedicated to a single artist, and their process of creating a single work. They come from a wide range of disciplines. There are poets, painters, chefs, sand castle sculptors and crossword puzzle makers.

And through this collection of interviews, the book tries to answer the questions: How does a sketch become a painting? How does a scribbled lyric become a song? How does an inspiration become a masterpiece?

The book is a visual feast, full of drafts, sketches, and scribbled notebook pages.

A sample of pages from chapter 9 of the book, which profiles poet and essayist Louise Glück.

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A sample of pages from chapter 9 of the book, which profiles poet and essayist Louise Glück.

Penguin Press

Every page shows how an idea becomes a finished design.

In one chapter, Moss speaks with Amy Sillman, an abstract painter who Moss admires for her unique use of color and shape.

“Amy was also a dream subject for this project,” Moss writes. “Because to reach the finish line of most of her paintings, she paints dozens of paintings, or even more, each usually pretty wonderful.”

The chapter contains 39 images, demonstrating the full evolution from first draft to finished product of her work, Miss Gleason.

Each image is accompanied by a quote from Sillman, explaining what step that particular draft represented in her process.

In another chapter, Moss speaks with the musician Rostam, who describes the process of writing the song “In a River.”

Musician Rostam Batmanglij, pictured here performing in 2017, shared his songwriting process with Adam Moss.

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Musician Rostam Batmanglij, pictured here performing in 2017, shared his songwriting process with Adam Moss.

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For Rostam, the creative process occurred in large part on his iPhone, in a collection of draft lyrics written in the notes app, and melodies in recorded as voice memos.

Eventually, those notes and recording on his phone evolved into a completed song.

So, what is the key to creating a masterpiece? Moss did not find an answer. All of artists featured across the book are unique, and so are their creative processes.

However, Moss did point to some frequently shared traits.

One commonality Moss found was that many artists describe themselves as having ADHD.

“Whether they have ADHD or not, [they have] the elements that we associate with ADHD,” Moss said, describing a balance of distractedness and focus.

“You need to be distracted enough for your mind, for your imagination to go fishing, and you need to be focused enough to know what to do with it.”

Moss also found that his subjects consistently found ways not to let the fear of failure or mistakes prevent them from starting.

“They tried to get through that as quickly as possible and with as little thought as possible,” Moss said. “Many of them write in longhand, giving themselves explicit permission to fail.”

However, there was one trait between Moss’s subjects that was truly ubiquitous.

“They all have a compulsion, an obsession to make something. It gets into their system and they can’t let go of it,” Moss said, explaining that the vision or the final product is secondary to the process.

“The end product is not the point,” Moss said. “what they were consumed by, why they did what they did is because they were consumed by the work. “