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The Roundtable

The Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards will be presented jointly with Pen America and held at the Bardavon on 10/11

By Joe Donahue
Published September 30, 2025 at 10:33 AM EDT

With book bans in public schools rising to levels unseen since the McCarthy era Red Scare of the 1950s, the Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards ceremony at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. will be presented jointly with PEN America on Saturday, October 11th. Author Jennifer Finney Boylan, PEN America’s president, will be the keynote speaker.

The Eleanor Roosevelt Awards honor individuals who embrace her call to build a better world through humanitarian efforts in education, advocacy, social justice, and civil and human rights. The ceremony will celebrate authors who have championed intellectual freedom and the fight against censorship during Banned Books Week 2025, an annual event that highlights the freedom to read and the censorship of books in libraries and schools. 

Ten honorees include best-selling author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), who will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie on October 11th. To tell us more, we welcome:

Samantha Shapley - Managing Director of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center
Becky Calzada, Librarian and this year's Literary Freedom Award honoree
Malinda Lo, honoree for Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Kasey Meehan, PEN America's Freedom to Read Program Director

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The Roundtable  Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book AwardsbardavonPEN America
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Joe Donahue
Joe talks to people on the radio for a living. In addition to countless impressive human "gets" - he has talked to a lot of Muppets. Joe grew up in Philadelphia, has been on the area airwaves for more than 25 years and currently lives in Washington County, NY with his wife, Kelly, and their dog, Brady. And yes, he reads every single book.
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