Second session of the 1983–84 Annual Meeting addressing the search for new offices for PEN America, voting of officers, President Norman Mailer reports on dinner with Mayor Koch, emphasizes future fundraising efforts and announces the 1986 International PEN Congress

PEN Annual Meeting, 7/11/1984

Norman Mailer discusses the Woman’s Committee and slating of the Executive Board.  General dispersion and conversation about slates for voting.  A number of trustees speak, most not identified in record. Norman Mailer’s intense often times acerbic farewell speech addressing gender and equality issues personal to PEN America.

PEN Annual Meeting, 6/3/1986

Vera Williams reads The Unity Statement at PEN's 2007 Tribute to Grace Paley. Read the statement below.

We are gathering at the Pentagon on November 17, 1980 because we fear for our lives. We fear for the life of this planet, our Earth, and the life of our children who are our human future.

We have come here to mourn and rage and defy the Pentagon because it is the workplace of imperial power which threatens us all. Every day while we work, study, love, the colonels and generals who are planning our annihilation walk calmly in and out the doors of its five sides. 

To carry out their plans, they have been making three to six nuclear bombs every day; they have accumulated over 30,000. We can destroy each other's cities, towns, schools, children, many times over. We are in the hands of men whose power and wealth have separated them from the reality of daily life, from the imagination. We are right to be afraid.


Vera Williams Reads The Unity Statement by Grace Paley

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world.  Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.


New tracks tagged #Grace Paley