On Monday 14th January, the Scottish Government announced its public consultation on reforming defamation law. This is a vital step to ensuring our laws are fit for the modern age.

Talk delivered at 90th anniversary symposium at the University of Glasgow in March 2017, by Jenni Calder, former President of Scottish PEN.

Without reform of defamation laws, the people of Scotland will continue to be deprived of essential protections for free speech.

Can a piece of text ever be accurately translated? And what are the socio-political implications of this?

Translated writing doesn’t just help us to understand other people and other cultures; it helps us to understand ourselves.

Women on the Edge – Interview with Cynthia Rogerson What is it about “being on the edge” geographically, socially, emotionally that drew you to the event? Actually, it was more a case of reacting with enthusiasm to an invitation. I like the broadness of the theme, and I’ve always like the word EDGE. It implies […]

This column by Scottish PEN’s president Drew Campbell appeared in The National on the 8th of January 2015. Find a digital edition here: http://www.thenational.scot/ and find them on Twitter at @ScotNational Liberty or death? As I suspect many people were when they heard of the murders in Paris yesterday the news was so shocking, so horrifying I was almost at […]

Poets of Protest A number of films for Al Jazeera are made by the (now Edinburgh-based) young Iranian filmmaker, Roxana Vilk. On Wednesday 20 November, she will be presenting and discussing her work at a meeting of the Scottish Poetry Association, that will take place at the Scottish Poetry Library, Canongate, Edinburgh. Dr Mario Relich introduces her work and […]