English PEN

English PEN event. Authors read from Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from Around the World: Tim Bates, Richard Sennett (standing); Jonathan Heawood, Victoria Glendinning, Rachel Billington (seated).

PEN was founded in 1926. It’s an international organisation of writers who now have 140 centres round the world.

I joined English PEN over twenty years ago. It was immediately interesting to become part of a writers’ club. There were evenings in which writers’ talked about themselves and their books. These days that’s a commonplace activity, with book festivals and bookshops providing so many events that it’s hard to choose. But back in the eighties there was still very few places to meet other writers and explain work in progress. There were no reading groups and creative writing groups or courses were only just starting.

Even more important to me, PEN established a Writers in Prison Committee which upholds the principle of freedom of expression and helps those writers who are imprisoned for their beliefs. For years I wrote letters, demonstrated and went on PEN conferences in places such as Finland, Edinburgh, Moscow and Warsaw. English PEN Presidents during those years included my sister, Antonia Fraser, and friends, Michael Holroyd and Ronald Harwood. In 1998 I was elected President myself and served for three years. During that time I helped, with Siobhan Dowd, (see The Siobhan Dowd Trust) to found a new programme: The Readers and Writers Programme. This sends books and their authors into schools, prisons and other places which lack resources to encourage reading.

I also met and became friendly with some wonderful writers, including Frances Spalding, Victoria Glendinning, Mavis Cheek, Deborah Moggach and Anne Sebba.

I couldn’t recommend joining PEN more highly – both for selfish reasons and because it’s a great thing to be part of an organisation that stands up for basic freedoms and helps less fortunate writers.

You can get more information on their website:
www.EnglishPEN.org