Our biannual online journal, 'PENning', presents work by Scottish PEN's member-writers alongside writing from people living in Scotland who are from other parts of the world. From its start in 2009, each themed issue of PENning includes a selection of poetry and prose from this rich mix of writers. Each issue also includes a featured writer with links outside Scotland. These have included poet Ak Welsapar from the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan who was forced into exile in Sweden, and Ali Cobby Eckermann, an Australian writer removed from her Aboriginal family as a child as well as writers living and working in Scotland born in Malaysia and Bulgaria.

We offer a welcoming literary community both to those who have come to live in Scotland and have an urge to write, and to established writers exiled from their own countries. Through our online literary journal, PENning we offer the opportunity for publication.

We work with community refugee organisations and TESOL groups, encouraging work and organising peer to peer translation, often leading to intercultural dialogue, events and publications.

In some parts of the world, conflict or clampdown on freedom of expression can mean that it's necessary or at least preferable for a writer to leave their home. However the condition of exile for writers can cause professional as well as personal suffering, endangering access to the usual sources of writerly support, publication and readership. We try to make that experience a little less lonely.

For more information and to send your work