18 Facts About PEN America

PEN America, founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of literature and human rights.

PEN America is the largest of the more than 100 PEN centers worldwide that together compose PEN International.

PEN America has offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

PEN America's advocacy includes work on press freedom and the safety of journalists, campus free speech, online harassment, artistic freedom, and support to regions of the world with challenges to freedom of expression.

Los Angeles Times reported that workers unionized with Unit of Work, a venture capitalist startup to help workers unionize, and that PEN America recognized the union the day after it was announced.

Related searches

PEN America was formed on April 19,1922, in New York City, and included among its initial members writers such as Willa Cather, Eugene O'Neill, Robert Frost, Ellen Glasgow, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Benchley.

PEN America's founding came after the launch of PEN International in 1921 in London by Catherine Amy Dawson-Scott, a British poet, playwright, and peace activist, who enlisted John Galsworthy as PEN International's first president.

The intent of PEN International was to foster international literary fellowship among writers that would transcend national and ethnic divides in the wake of World War I PEN America subscribes to the principles outlined in the PEN International Charter.

Full membership in PEN America generally requires being a published writer with at least one work professionally published, or being a translator, agent, editor, or other publishing professional.

PEN America celebrates the written word with a nationwide series of events throughout the year.

PEN America confers more than 20 awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes each year, presenting nearly US$350,000 to writers and translators.

PEN America provides assistance to other prison writing initiatives around the country and offers a Writing for Justice Fellowship for writers inside and outside of prison seeking to advance the conversation around the challenges of mass incarceration through creative expression.

The Emerging Voices Fellowship, based at PEN America's Los Angeles office, is a literary mentorship that aims to provide new writers who are isolated from the literary establishment with the tools, skills, and knowledge they need to launch a professional writing career.

PEN America has offered workshops that nurture the writing skills of domestic workers, taxi drivers, street vendors, and others wage earners.

PEN America's work is sustained advocacy on behalf of individual writers and journalists who are being persecuted because of their work.

PEN America focuses on countries and regions where free expression is under particular challenge, including China, Myanmar, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Central Asia.

PEN America has a focus on issues surrounding free speech at colleges and universities and seeks to raise awareness of the First Amendment and foster constructive dialogue that upholds the free speech rights of all on campus.

PEN America leads workshops to equip writers, journalists, and all those active online with tools and tactics to defend against hateful speech and trolling.