Editorial: A Digital Salon

The English PEN Literary Salon at the London Book Fair is a standout moment in our calendar – a moment in which we share with the publishing community our mission of celebrating diverse literature and championing freedom of expression. The Salon is a platform on which writers – some emerging, others with long careers behind them – address pressing contemporary discussions. Year-on-year, we are thrilled and provoked by what emerges.

With the necessary cancellation of the 2020 London Book Fair, we resolved to create a new platform for these discussions. And so, this week, we present the Digital English PEN Literary Salon: five interviews on PEN Transmissions, published daily, featuring writers from the LBF programme.

In these pieces, you will encounter discussions on reading and writing queer black British experiences;  on asking what we can (and should) write; on placing marginalised voices at the centre of surreal stories; on being a woman writer writing ‘unlikeable’ women; and on timeliness, in all its senses.

When fisherfolk can’t go to sea, they mend their nets. We’re pleased to have fashioned a new platform for these conversations, despite the storm we’re weathering. We hope Transmissions readers enjoy the catches.

– Hannah Trevarthen (Events and Partnerships Manager) & Will Forrester (Editor).