Jean Rafferty describes the Worldwide Reading for Ashraf Fayadh event held in Glasgow’s Clutha Bar.

by Jenni Calder Scottish PEN’s annual International Women’s Day event, organised jointly with the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, is always stimulating and enjoyable. This year’s, which took place on 6 March, was a feast of the unexpected, the challenging and the entertaining. Our six writers lead us into […]

Written by Jenni Calder, Scottish PEN, co-organiser of ‘Women on the Edge’ On 6 March six writers are getting together at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities to talk about ‘Women on the Edge’. The all-day event marks International Women’s Day (on 8 March) and has now become an annual […]

Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence It may be a coincidence that just as the post-ironic Creative Scotland crumbles a book is published that expresses the views of 27 writers on the cultural implications of Scottish independence but I can’t help seeing a connection. Over half the writers are members of PEN (and the rest would […]

Brokebus Mountain Wyoming, July 2011 We were in Annie Proulx country when our bus, full of scholars attending the 9th Walter Scott conference in Laramie, Wyoming, broke down 10,000 feet up in the Snowy Range. If the Man from Laramie could have met the Man from Abbotsford would they have had anything in common? Maybe more than one might think. They were both familiar […]