The Board of Scottish PEN is delighted to announce that Louise Welsh has agreed to represent Scottish PEN in a new role as Honorary President.
Louise has been a long-standing member of Scottish PEN and has supported our events and activities consistently over the years. Most recently, Louise delivered the 2022 Naomi Mitchison Lecture at an event hosted at the University of Glasgow. The lecture was titled ‘Things that are so…Things that are not so: Fiction and lies in a fragmented world ‘.
In her role as Honorary President, Louise will advocate for the work of Scottish PEN and amplify the principles of the PEN International Charter through her work in the Scottish and international literary scene. Louise will be a valued source of advice and support as we work to defend free expression and the promotion of literature in Scotland and beyond.
Louise Welsh said:
‘It is a huge honour to be invited to act as Honorary President of Scottish PEN. We are living through a period where hard won freedoms and equalities are under threat in Scotland and the wider world. I believe passionately in the PEN Charter. Literature knows no frontiers and it is important for writers and academics to use whatever influence and privilege they have to ensure freedom of expression and champion peace and equality’.
Ricky Monahan Brown, President of Scottish PEN, said:
‘We are delighted that Louise has accepted our invitation to act as Honorary President of Scottish PEN. Louise is a prominent and important member of the Scottish literary community as well as a deep thinker about issues surrounding free expression and the role of the writer in society. We look forward to working with her to promote reading and writing in Scotland’.
About Louise
Louise Welsh is a Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Glasgow, and the author of nine novels including The Cutting Room, The Plague Times Trilogy and The Second Cut. Louise has a ten-year practice in opera with composer Stuart MacRae. Their most recent opera Anthropocene will have its German premier at Bielefeld Theater in 2023. Louise was co-founder and director (with Jude Barber, Collective Architecture) of the Empire Café, an award winning multi-disciplinary exploration of Scotland’s relationship with the North Atlantic slave trade.
Louise is editor of Yonder Awa, a poetry anthology on the theme of Scotland and the North Atlantic slave trade by Scottish and Caribbean writers and Ghost, One Hundred Stories to Read with the Lights On. She has received numerous awards and international fellowships, including a Doctor of Arts from the Open University and an honorary fellowship from the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
For more information please contact Scottish PEN at info@scottishpen.org