The Board of Trustees of Scottish PEN was horrified to learn of the attack on Salman Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York, on 12 August. Our President, Ricky Monahan Brown, immediately joined our colleagues at English PEN in conveying the best wishes of our membership for Sir Salman and offering our solidarity with our friends at […]

Scottish PEN marks the end of LGBT History Month 2022 by sharing a blog by poet, Jay Whittaker. The theme of ‘Blurring Borders: A World in Motion’ has been set by LGBT Youth Scotland for this year’s activities. You can learn more on the LGBT History Month website. Blurring borders – we’ve been here before […]

Join the Scottish PEN Women Writers Committee as we celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March 2022.

Scottish PEN is pleased to mark the beginning of LGBT History Month by sharing a blog by playwright and member, Jo Clifford.

It is our pleasure to announce that our international guest writer for LGBT Youth Scotland’s Many Voices group is Eli Clare, a disabled queer and trans writer-activist based in the United States. Eli will join the group, led by poet Nat Raha, for their final showcase event on 9th September in Edinburgh.

We are excited to introduce our international guest writer for  International Women’s Group Glasgow North Many Voices writing group – Sepideh Jodeyri will join the group led by poet Marjorie Lotfi Gill for their final event in November. Read on to find out more about Sepideh and what attracted to her Many Voices project.

We recorded our first Many Voices podcast today, featuring Sarah Short and Eric Ngalle Charles in conversation with Sasha de Buyl-Pisco

Ghazi Hussein took part in Scottish PEN’s event at this year’s Big Lit Festival in Gatehouse of Fleet, a joint Writers in Exile/Writers at Risk event chaired by Liz Niven. After performing several of his poems, Ghazi talked to Jean Rafferty about his years of suffering, not just in Syria but also in Scotland, where racist attacks made his flat in Sighthill more a prison than a home.