PEN Canada

PEN Canada is thrilled to welcome four new members to its board — Vickery Bowles, Lidiia Karpenko, Emile Dirks and Maggie Fairs.

• Vickery Bowles was Toronto’s City Librarian from 2015 to 2025. Throughout her tenure, she championed the public library as a vital democratic institution, uniquely positioned to preserve and protect democratic values and freedoms.

• Lidiia Karpenko is a journalist and communications specialist with over 20 years of experience in the media industry. Originally from Ukraine and now based in Toronto, her extensive career includes roles as a radio host, TV editor, and communications expert.

• Emile Dirks is a senior research associate at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where he explores authoritarian politics, transnational repression, and biometric surveillance. He is the author of numerous reports on Chinese police surveillance programs and the co-author of a forthcoming book on how the Chinese government governs its diaspora.

• Maggie Fairs is a global communications leader with extensive experience across the U.S., U.K., and Canada in corporate, agency, and not-for-profit sectors. She served as Vice President of Communications and later Chief of Staff at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she led strategic communications, community engagement, and inclusive messaging initiatives that drove record attendance and program participation.

Get to know our board, staff and advisory council here: https://pencanada.ca/who-we-are/leadership-staff/

To learn more about our work, and how you can get involved with PEN, visit our website: https://pencanada.ca

“Resistance is not always loud; sometimes it is the quiet determination to tell the truth, preserve memory, and imagine a different future.”

These are the words of Atefeh Khademolreza, a writer, director, and animator.

Last year Atefeh was awarded the Humber–PEN Writers-in-Exile Scholarship, for a graduate certificate program in creative writing. While at Humber and under the mentorship of novelist Antanas Sileika, Atefeh worked on her debut novel, A Grizzly Bear in Tehran.

Now at the end of her Humber scholarship, we caught up with Atefeh who speaks on creating across borders, Persian poetry and films, and “living between worlds”.

Read the interview on our website: https://pencanada.ca/between-tehran-and-toronto-atefeh-khademolreza-on-community-writing-and-her-humber-scholarship/

PEN Canada began at a kitchen table. It was a distinguished kitchen table — Margaret Atwood’s.

Four decades ago, the first PEN chapter in Canada, founded in 1926 in Québec, had just split into francophone and anglophone centres to better serve both writing communities. PEN Québec stayed in Montreal and PEN Canada formed in Toronto.

To mark 100 years of PEN in Canada, our annual report reflects on key cases and accomplishments from the decades of PEN.

Contributors include José Teodoro, Charlie Foran and Rui Umezawa, with stories and reflections from previous presidents Margaret Atwood, Marian Botsford Fraser, Randy Boyagoda, Haroon Siddiqui, and Grace Westcott.

This summer, read our annual report on our website: https://pencanada.ca/news/pen-publishes-2025-annual-report-a-place-at-the-table-100-years-of-pen-in-canada/

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A Place at the Table: 100 Years of PEN in Canada
2025/2026 Annual Report

Edited by Sarmishta Subramanian
Design: Jim Ryce, soapboxdesign.com
Illustrations: Tara Hardy, tarahardyillustration.com

Do you know a Canadian who helped a threatened foreign writer?

This summer, consider nominating them for the 2026 Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize.

Now in its fifth year, this prize is awarded to a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or Canadian organization who has recently provided significant help to a writer or journalist outside Canada who has faced threats, violence, harassment, or imprisonment for reporting or commenting on issues of public interest.

Previous recipients have been recognized because they provided paralegal services, found pathways out of unsafe countries, resettled those who were fleeing danger, housed writers as they resettled in Canada, or lobbied governments to release imprisoned writers.

📅 The deadline for nomination is Wednesday August 19, 2026.

The winner will receive $3,000 CAD and be recognized at the PEN Canada awards ceremony later this year.

Fill out the nomination form on pencanada.ca: https://pencanada.ca/nominations-open-for-2026-marie-ange-garrigue-prize/

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This prize is generously funded by Cynthia Wine and Philip Slayton.

Announcing the jury for our two PEN prizes 📣

PEN Canada is seeking nominations from the public and civil society peers for two annual awards: the Ken Filkow Prize, for advancing freedom of expression in Canada, and the Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize, for assisting a writer in danger outside of Canada. The prizes are valued at $2,000 and $3,000, respectively.

This year’s nominees will be judged by a panel that includes Andrew DuBois, Andy Lamey and Shawn Micallef.

📅 The deadline for nominations is Wednesday August 19, 2026.

Learn more and submit a nomination on our website: https://pencanada.ca/meet-the-jury-for-two-pen-awards-2026-ken-filkow-and-marie-ange-garrigue-prizes/

Lecko Zamora: Dtuye (Cuida) - Wichí - PEN Argentina La lengua wichí pertenece a la familia mataco-mataguaya y constituye el núcleo de la identidad espiritual, social y territorial del pueblo wichí. No es solo ...

Next week at our sold-out Summer Social, Kim Echlin will be interviewed by Ali Sobati.

Sobati is an Iranian poet, translator, and literary activist based in Toronto. With over 20 years of work in Iran’s suppressed literary and academic circles, he has taught modern poetry, philosophy of literature, and critical theory across underground and alternative institutions.

In January 2026, amidst the Iranian government's lethal crackdowns on dissent and civilians, Sobati wrote a piece for PEN about a consequential 1994 manifesto — We Are Writers. The manifesto was drafted by 134 prominent Iranian authors and poets in a time of state surveillance, intimidation, and the criminalization of independent thought. The document is marked a decisive moment in Iranian literary resistance.

Ahead of our event next week, read about this Iranian literary history in his piece — We Are Writers: Collective Freedom and the Cost of its Defense — on our website:

https://pencanada.ca/we-are-writers-collective-freedom-and-the-cost-of-its-defense/

“The more people like my work, the more I face challenges and obstacles in Kurdistan. They’ve tried to silence me, even offered me money or to work for them. But I refused, because as a journalist you have to be the voice of those voiceless people.”

This is Kurdish-Canadian journalist Diary Marif persisting in his advocacy and journalism. Over the last five years, Diary used his journalism and media connections to advocate for five imprisoned writers in Kurdistan, including fundraising for their families, speaking with government officials, and hosting information seminars on the cases.

For this work, he was recognized last year with the Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize.

This year's prize is currently open for nominations — we encourage anyone interested in PEN to submit a nomination: https://pencanada.ca/advocacy-aid/marie-ange-garrigue-prize/

As you prepare your nomination, catch up with last year's winner, who tells PEN about how he continues his journalism with responsibility and optimism:

https://pencanada.ca/a-voice-for-voiceless-people-diary-marif-on-his-2025-marie-ange-garrigue-prize/

'A voice for voiceless people': Diary Marif on his 2025 Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize - PEN Canada The Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize is awarded annually to those who have provided significant help to a writer or journalist outside Canada who has faced threats, violence, harassment, or imprisonment for reporting or commenting on issues of public interest. Past recipients include journalists, paralegal...

PEN International joins an international coalition of press freedom and human rights organizations calling for the immediate, unconditional release of Vietnamese journalist, author and democracy advocate Phạm Đoan Trang.

Today is her 48th birthday, and the sixth birthday she is spending behind bars:

Vietnam: PEN International joins coalition calling for the release of Phạm Đoan Trang on her birthday  — PEN International | Promoting Literature & Defending Freedom of Expression Worldwide ‍ ‍ “I don’t want freedom for myself; that’s too easy. No, I want something greater: freedom for Vietnam.” Phạm Đoan Trang ‍ 27 May 2026: PEN International joins an international coalition of press freedom and human rights organisations calling for the immediate and unconditional re...