Based in Berkeley, California, PEN West is a branch of PEN American Center and was begun in the 1980’s with Robert Hass as President. After a brief lapse, it was revived by Valerie Miner in 1988-89. PEN West has been in operation with a widening membership ever since with program emphasis on literary readings/discussions, translation events, and Freedom-to-Write.  There is an average of eight events a year, including panels and bookstore readings, co-sponsored by the local bookstores, U.C Berkeley, or The Townsend Center for the Humanities, which are open to the public.
 
Each September, PEN West hosts a Banned Book Event at Black Oak Books planned to coincide with public programs at other PEN centers across the country. In honor of PEN translation month in May, PEN West often mounts several events in bookstores and has recently begun to partner with the Center for Art in Translation in picking the winner of the yearly Northern California Book Reviewers Award for translation. The branch has also helped support POETRY FLASH, an important Berkeley literary magazine without whose help the other NCBR awards for fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature would be impossible.
 
Every Spring PEN West hosts a members-only reception honoring PEN Members and Friends who have published a book in the past year, giving branch authors an opportunity to display their books and meet each other, in addition to meeting selected editors and agents. 
 
If you are a Member of PEN American Center and would like to get involved with PEN West, please click here. 
 
>> Click here for the PEN West Blog, and Upcoming Member Events 
 

Officers of PEN WEST

Brenda Webster, Chair 
Dorothy Gilbert, Coordinator
Carol Cosman, chair of the Translation Committee
Leon Litwack, chair of Freedom-to-Write

Steering Comittee

Leon Litwack
Carol Cosman
Margret Schafer
Wendy Martin
Candace Falk