Naomi Mitchison was a defiant and bold voice in a literary and political environment dominated by men. Since Naomi’s death, much has changed in Scotland, across the UK and around the world, but what progress has actually been made and what ground still needs to be covered?

To tie this history to the contemporary issues women writers face, the Scottish PEN Women Writers Committee is hosting the annual Naomi Mitchison Lecture at the University of Glasgow on 23rd November to bring together leading women writers and activists to look at where women writers are on the road to equality, how much further do they need to travel and what are the lived experiences of women writers in Scotland today?

Joining us will be Jenni Calder, the author of The Burning Glass: The Life of Naomi Mitchison and member of ROAR (Represent, Object, Advocate, Rewrite); leading Indo-Scot poet & novelist, and author of Twice Born and Bombay Baby, Leela Soma and Sara Sheridan, the author of the recent dissection of Scotland’s gendered historical retelling, Where are the Women?: A Guide to an Imagined Scotland. The discussion will be chaired by the Scottish PEN Women Writers Committee chair, Emma Doherty. Together they will explore issues around representation, equality and community to dissect the state of the arts, literary, social and political environment in both Scotland and further afield.

The lecture will take place at 106 Rankine Building, 79 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8LT from 18:00.

The panel will explore these issues through sharing their personal experiences, dissecting key trends and issues, while also identifying ways we can move forward. This will explore the representation and equality of women writers by establishing the thread between our history and contemporary issues