Yeah, you're right, this letter doesn't give a lot of context, and honestly I'm only knowledgeable about the context because my wife is a writer and has judged

Yeah, you're right, this letter doesn't give a lot of context, and honestly I'm only knowledgeable about the context because my wife is a writer and has judged awards for them in the past/we have a lot of friends in NYC lit circles. One of the major things that pushed things over the edge for writers affiliated with PEN is they were platforming Mayim Bialik [1]. They're an organization founded around free speech and protecting writers and they hadn't made any statements about the journalists killed in Gaza. For an organization that is often virtue signaling for (progressive) political causes their silence was pretty loud for many writers that interact with them as literary community members. They had even canceled events that featured stories of Palestinians due to not wanting to stir controversy. And then they go and platform Bialik and I think a lot of people just turned on them in frustration at that point. [1] https://lithub.com/two-novelists-have-cut-ties-with-pen-over-its-mayim-bialik-event-and-gaza-silence/ https://lithub.com/two-novelists-have-cut-ties-with-pen-over...