Film Forum

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world.



Kim A. Snyder is an Academy Award® nominee and Peabody Award-winning Director / Producer whose latest feature, THE LIBRARIANS, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Her Oscar®-nominated short Death By Numbers, co-created with gun-violence survivor Sam Fuentes, has won multiple awards. Snyder’s acclaimed films include US KIDS (Sundance 2020), Lessons From A School Shooting (Netflix Original), and NEWTOWN (Sundance 2016, Peabody Award, PBS). Her earlier work includes WELCOME TO SHELBYVILLE (PBS) and I REMEMBER ME (Zeitgeist Films). She also associate produced the Oscar®-winning short Trevor, which spawned The Trevor Project. Snyder holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins SAIS and lives in New York City.

Audrey Wilson-Youngblood is an educator with over two decades of experience in K-12 and higher education. Throughout her career as a teacher, librarian, and leader, she’s been an advocate for student writers and readers, promoting literacy and the free and open exchange of ideas in library spaces. With experience in both school and academic libraries, Audrey is pursuing her PhD in Information Science with the goal of becoming a library educator to prepare and mentor the next generation of librarians.

Martha Hickson recently retired after 20 years as a high school librarian. Her work has been featured in School Library Journal, Booklist, and CNN Online. Her defense of intellectual freedom has been recognized with awards from the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, the New Jersey Library Association, the American Association of School Librarians, and the National Council of Teachers of English. In 2022, the National Coalition Against Censorship presented Martha with the Judith Krug Outstanding Librarian Award, and the American Library Association awarded Martha with the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity in recognition of her “energy and bravery in the face of ... persistent and ongoing hostility,” while advocating for students’ First Amendment right to read.

Peter Parnell is the coauthor, with Justin Richardson, of And Tango Makes Three. He is a playwright whose plays have been produced at the Public Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York City, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and the Seattle Repertory Company, among others. His play QED was produced on Broadway. He has written extensively for television as a producer for both The West Wing and The Guardian; he has also written episodes of Maurice Sendak’s series Little Bear. He lives in New York City.

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film critic and entertainment journalist based in New York, with bylines across Variety, RogerEbert.com, Vanity Fair, Elle, TIME, The New York Times, and others. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), Tomris covers various prominent film festivals around the world, and moderates awards season panels and opening-weekend Q&As. Previously, she has served as part of several Gotham Awards nominating committees, as well as a jury member at film festivals like SXSW, Florida, Montclair and Hamptons. Prior to her journalism career, Tomris spent a decade in marketing and advertising production after earning her MBA.

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