Summer Lopez, chief program officer for free expression for PEN America, will speak at the Monadnock Summer Lyceum Sunday, Aug. 6, at 11 a.m.

Her talk “The Freedom to Read: Why Book Banning is a Threat to Democracy” will be a chance to learn about censorship, as the number of banned books in the United States increased by 28 percent between January and June of 2022, according to PEN America.

Poets, Essayists and Novelists (PEN) was formed in New York City in April 1922, and included early writing icons Willa Cather, Robert Frost and Eugene O’Neill. Lopez will point out the need for organizations such as PEN to oppose new laws broadly labeling certain books as “harmful” or “explicit.”

Of 874 books recently banned, 30 percent include incidents of racism. Another 30 percent include themes of grief and death. Two other large categories include works with LGBTQ characters and teen relationships. Of the banned books, 41 percent were either written by minority authors or had minority protagonists.

Lopez earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a master’s from Princeton. She was a democracy, human rights and government specialist and worked in such locations as Zimbabwe, Egypt, Nepal, India and Ghana.

Marcia Breckenridge, a retired high school English teacher at Milford High School and current adjunct faculty for Keene State’s CALL program, will moderate the free program. Most recently, she taught a course on censorship in American high schools.

Simon Furze will perform piano music at 10:30 a.m.

The lecture will also be live-streamed. Visit monadnocklyceum.org for a link to the stream.