TORONTO – PEN Canada is pleased to announce Ira Wells as the new president of PEN Canada. He was elected on Thursday, June 12, 2025 during the PEN Canada Annual General Meeting.
Ira Wells is a critic, essayist, and associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he serves as Academic Programs Director and teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One Program. His writing has appeared in The Walrus, The Atlantic, Globe and Mail, Guardian, The New Republic, and many other venues. Wells joined the PEN Canada board earlier this year as a member-at-large.
His most recent book, On Book Banning: How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy (Biblioasis, 2025) illustrates the historical opposition and current-day challenges to the freedom to read, including in Canada.
“The increasing attacks on books and libraries are, among much else, future-oriented attacks on liberal democracy and its vital institutions,” Ira wrote in The Walrus earlier this year. “Attacks on school libraries are, among much else, future-oriented attacks on liberal democracy and its vital institutions.”
As president, Wells succeeds Grace Westcott, a lawyer and writer with deep roots in the Canadian publishing world, who, during her four years as president, oversaw a period of significant growth in the organization, including supporting a blossoming of the writers-in-exile program, securing a basis to send increased emergency aid to international writers in peril, focusing our Canadian issues efforts on online harms, book banning and digital transnational repression, doubling the PEN staff and, with their talents, putting office operations and PEN’s financing on a secure footing. Westcott will remain on the PEN Canada board as a member-at-large.
“I am delighted to see Ira Wells take the reins at PEN Canada,” Westcott says. “I know that his energy, commitment and understanding of the issues facing expressive freedom will help PEN meet the challenges of this moment in our history.”
In addition to the election of its new president, PEN Canada announces the appointment of Jean Teillet, a writer, treaty negotiator, women’s and Indigenous rights litigator, to vice-president of the board, and welcomes editor and writer Sarmishta Subramanian, as a new member-at-large.
Leaning into his experience working with students, Wells says he wants to see the organization bring new people – including new writers and Canadian youth – into the PEN fold.
“I’ve seen how meaningful, how deeply satisfying it can be for Canadian writers to share their talents and enthusiasm with their mentees,” Ira says in an interview on our website, noting that PEN Canada has made inroads with mentorship with its New Voices Award. “The benefits flow both ways…We need to meet young people where they are, recognize the situation in which they find themselves, and encourage pathways into PEN.”
Read more in our interview with Wells.
ABOUT PEN CANADA
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization that defends freedom of expression, assists writers in peril at home and abroad, and celebrates literature. The centre was founded in 1983 and is proud to be one of nearly 140 centres of PEN International.
For media inquires, please contact Eilish Waller (communications coordinator, PEN Canada) at ewaller[at]pencanada[dot]ca.
