PEN Center USA

PEN Center USA is a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It is one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being PEN America, in New York City. It was founded in 1943 and incorporated as a nonprofit association in 1981.PEN Center USA incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1981. PEN Center USA’s membership of over 700 writers includes poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists (for the original letters in the "PEN" acronym), as well as television and screen writers, critics, historians, editors, journalists, translators, and booksellers. Through Freedom To Write programming and events, PEN Center USA advocates for imprisoned, censored, and persecuted writers throughout the world, while cultivating and expanding a diverse and engaged literary community in the western United States.