Advocacy & Aid: Writers in Exile
Community
Reaching across Canada, PEN has created a community for writers displaced from their homelands.
Founded in 2004 in order to provide solidarity and support for writers living in exile in Canada, the PEN Writers in Exile community includes journalists, poets, editors, translators, essayists and playwrights who have been forced from their homelands due to their written works. These writers have often faced extraordinary hardship, including threats of violence, imprisonment, torture and death.
Activities
For over 20 years, this community has offered members the chance to develop their professional skills through residencies, workshops, public performances, and a broad range of formal and informal support.
Recent activities include a popular reading series, Voices of Freedom, which is held three times a year in Toronto, and a biannual social lunch gathering at Romero House (1558 Bloor St. West). Members can also apply for residencies and scholarships and participate in public readings at literary festivals across Canada. And while each member has published work either back home or here in Canada, as a group the Writers in Exile recently published an anthology of stories entitled The Uncaged Voice.
New members are welcome, email us at queries@pencanada.ca to inquire.
PEN Writers in Exile at the book launch for their anthology, The Uncaged Voice.
