On Blackness and Belonging: Reflections on Racism in Canada and the United States

Debra Thompson’s memoir, The Long Road Home, provides an uncompromising account of how racism slips and mutates across the Canada-US border.  An associate professor of political science at McGill and born and raised in Canada, Debra brings a perspective from having lived in both countries. Join Debra in conversation with Vershawn Young, an American-born writer, actor, lawyer, and professor of Black Studies at the University of Waterloo. 

Voices of Freedom event

On September 24 at 2:30 p.m. at the Hirut Jazz Club, the PEN Canada Writers in Exile group proudly presents an afternoon of inspired readings from emancipated voices. This event is the fourth ‘chapter’ of their “Voices of Freedom” reading series, this time with writers from Tunisia, Kurdistan-Sorani, Turkey, and Syria.

You’re invited to the launch of Em Dial’s Virtual Poetry Exhibition THE BALL

In “The Ball,” poet Em Dial explores how the mythos of the overtly sexual and desperately self-loathing “quad***n” has been crafted by some of the most atrocious sides of science and history. Throughout this exhibition are poems, self-portraits, and artifacts through which an artist attempts to separate themself, their queerness, and their complex familial history from the disturbing resonance of the American imagination.

From Hollywood to Homer: Star Wars as epic poetry

On November 4, 2021 at 7-8 pm EST, PEN Canada invites you to a free online discussion with Jack Mitchell as he discusses his retelling of the Star Wars myth in iambic pentameter — the metre of English epics like Paradise Lost and The Prelude — with the novelist Colin McAdam.