When: Tuesday, 4. December 2012
To: Monday, 31. December 2012
Host: English PEN
More info: www.englishpen.org/seasons-greetings-2012/

As many of you will remember from previous years, every winter PEN produces a list of addresses of writers at risk and their families to whom our members are encouraged to send seasonal greetings.

Many writers who have received these cards have told us of how much it meant to them to be remembered by their colleagues in this way, and those of you who have participated in previous years will know how touching it is to receive a response from a prisoner or their family.

This year, we’d love for even more of our members and supporters to get involved with this initiative to help us send a strong message to colleagues from Bahrain to Spain, from Iran to Uzbekistan, that they have not and will not be forgotten.  

If you are interested in being involved, please email cat@englishpen.org to request the list for 2012-2013.

Guidelines:

  • Please do not circulate or publish the list of writers at risk as it contains personal addresses of a number or writers and their families.
  • You may wish to send cards or emails to all those on the list or you might decide to focus on a particular region, country or case – it is entirely up to you. All we ask is that you let us know who you decide to write to for our records.
  • As our cases of concern represent a variety of religious faiths, it is strongly advised that you do not send cards with overtly religious symbolism or messages. Instead, we recommend that you send general greetings or tourist cards from your town, the more colourful the better.
  • Please include a return address (you can use the English PEN office address if you prefer) so that if the person is able to reply they can do so. If you do receive a response, please do let us know and ideally send us a copy.
  • Should you wish to write to a particular country but are worried by language limitations, please visit our Translated Greetings page. There you will find a brief message translated into Azerbaijani, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Turkish and Uzbek which you may choose to include alongside your own message where appropriate.

If you have any queries about the initiative please email cat@englishpen.org

Many thanks and very best wishes to you all for 2013.