Panel: The American Writer and American Society, 10/28/1986 by PEN America published on 2016-12-20T21:30:37Z The moderators introduce the six writers linking their work by their explorations of social, cultural and political themes—sometimes using techniques that are postmodernist—to explore the larger questions of American life. The panelists begin by responding to a Philip Roth quote: ”The American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full in trying to understand, and then describe, and then make credible much of American reality. It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one’s own meager imagination. The actuality is continually outdoing our talents.” Some of the writers respond directly to the quote attempting to define what fiction writers do and their role in the culture. They also consider urgency vs time to create and to consider complexity—one author states sometimes “it’s time for everyone to get a gun and sometimes for everyone to get a pen.” They also speak about the economic imperatives in publishing, the isolation of writers, realism in relation to the inner life of writers, the status of the American novel in the world and if American writers are political enough, and the pitfalls of teaching creative writing. Panelists include John Calvin Batchelor, Russell Banks, Cynthia Ozick, David Bradley, Maureen Howard, Robert Stone, and Katha Pollitt.