PEN Center USA

PEN Center USA

A Human Rights & Literary Arts Organization
Abbreviation	EA
Formation	1943
Type	Non-profit, Literary society, Human Rights Campaigning
Legal status	Association
Purpose	Advocacy, Programs, Events
Headquarters	London, UK
Location	Los Angeles, California
Coordinates	34°03′42″N 118°24′06″W / 34.061711°N 118.401705°W / 34.061711; -118.401705
Region served	Western Half of USA
Official language	English
Executive Director	Michelle Franke
Key people	Board of Directors
Parent organization	International PEN
Website	penusa.org
Remarks	PEN Center USA is a branch of PEN International, the world’s leading international literary and human rights organization. PEN Center USA operates in the western United States.

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.

The organization was originally established in 1943. In 1952 PEN International granted it the right to become PEN Los Angeles Center, able to set up its own chapters. In 1981 it was incorporated as a Non-profit organization. In 1988 it requested a name change, and eventually it was renamed to PEN USA Center West.

PEN Center USA’s mission is to stimulate and maintain interest in the written word, to foster a vital literary culture, and to defend freedom of expression domestically and internationally.

PEN Center USA offers Freedom to Write programming, manifested in four channels of action: the FTW Advocacy Network, the Emerging Voices Fellowship, PEN in the Community, and the annual Literary Awards. Each of these programs pursue the goals of the essential Freedom to Write idea—to support writers' freedom of expression and to promote access to their writing globally.

Freedom to Write Advocacy Network is a worldwide, collaborative effort to support free speech and to defend writers whose civil and human rights have been violated. In 1948, International PEN members helped to craft Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression… and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” PEN holds Category A status at UNESCO and consultative status with the United Nations.