What is Tomorrow Club?
The idea for the Tomorrow Club first developed in 1917, more than a century ago, when Catherine Amy Dawson Scott dreamt of connecting young writers with their more experienced peers. This vision later inspired PEN International, now the world’s largest network of writers, essayists, poets, and activists with centres in more than 80 countries. With over a century of history, PEN is a global network dedicated to defending freedom of expression.
Now, with a diverse community of emerging storytellers in 58 countries, we have rekindled Dawson Scott’s dream as per modern era’s need by launching the Young Writers Committee and its web platform, Tomorrow Club, a constellation of young voices from around the world, spotlighted with a focus on one continent at a time.
From Turkey to Serbia, Palestine to Myanmar, and Bangladesh to the USA, young people are rising their voices, shaping their societies and facing enormous challenges. They are neglected or marginalised, and in the worst cases, criminalised for their right to free expression. The Young Writers Committee and Tomorrow Club aim to create a space to listen to them and amplify their voices. We will be a platform to connect young people, especially under 35, facing shared challenges. We will create exchanges to learn from and support each other across borders. This web platform is an exploration of what that space could be like.
We are living in a time of deepening global divisions. Economic, social, and political fragmentation is rife. Developing innovative ways to bridge the growing divides and more forward is more important than ever. Youth-led peaceful resistance movements across the globe have lots in common. They stand against wealth inequality, political corruption, regression of rights environmental decline, and the shrinking space for free expression.
Many are also suffering from unemployment, lack of proper income, and support or community, all of which leads to more demotivation, isolation, or escapism.
As autocracies and algorithms narrow our perspectives, we know little about life for people around our age in other parts of the world, let alone those nearby with different views.
We believe we must exchange with our peers near and far to focus on pressing future concerns. This is why we set up the Young Writers Committee and its sister project, Tomorrow Club.
We believe young people can be inspired by PEN''s wide community of writers, young and old and learn from more than a hundred years of history defending free expression.
Writers and those harnessing creative expression strive to move people. We’re at a time now when people need to move each other towards defending shared rights . What better way to connect than through storytelling, and who better at opening up and connecting strangers than storytellers themselves? Compassionate writers, journalists, poets, and writivists.
There is common pride to be found in the word “youth.” Though it paints a massively diverse group with a single brush, that’s what is needed now; to get closer together in the face of shared challenges.
How Does Tomorrow Club Work?
*Tomorrow Club is a cross-border platform for people under 35, created to amplify young voices. Through the guidance of PEN International's Young Writers Committee acting as regional advisors, we will spotlight stories and experiences as expressed by young voices across different continents, drawing attention to their perspectives and the methods they develop to cope with it all.
*Our goal is to capture the youth-specific perspective: the urgent issues they face and the brave, creative ways they push back through publishing their writings, essays, short stories, poems, lyrics and other forms of expressions based in the written word. We will provide online workshops and networking opportunities, as well as collective solidarity actions. We will dive into the lives of young people behind the stories told through our podcast series 'The Brave Young Voices of Today and Tomorrow'
*An “Empty Chair” section on our website will highlight cases of young people being prosecuted or silenced for speaking out. We will offer practical guides on how others can support them, from petitions and letter writing to creative solidarity campaigns.
*We will also host online gatherings, workshops and share curated resources and book recommendations from the spotlighted regions. Join our newsletter to receive this information and updates about our upcoming calendar. In addition to digital gatherings, we plan to create in-person spaces in the future for young writers to meet, collaborate, and take action to expand PEN’s legacy of global solidarity. Local and international collaborations for new initiatives are already taking place between PEN Centres and partners.
When young people, already feeling uprooted from their future prospects are kept divided and silenced, progress is delayed. But when they connect locally and globally, peer-to-peer, they strive to repair what’s broken and offer remedies at the personal, community, and policy level.
Brief History
The idea behind Tomorrow Club traces its roots back to 1917, when Catherine Amy Dawson Scott first set it up to bring together young writers to connect with established literary figures. Supported by writers such as H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw and T.S. Eliot, the initiative laid the groundwork for what would later evolve into a global vision.
This vision took form as PEN International, founded by Dawson Scott as a worldwide network of writers committed to promoting literature and defending freedom of expression. PEN International is the world’s largest network of writers today, with autonomous PEN Centres in over 80 countries campaigning to defend free speech where it is threatened.
A youth-focused arm of PEN, known as Young PEN, was formally established in 1928 with philosopher Bertrand Russell as its first president.
Fast forward nearly a century
In 2018, PEN International and PEN Norway collaborated to establish a young writers network in Türkiye, titled "İlkyaz". Developed and managed by Ege Dündar and Irmak Ertaş the project enabled over 300 young voices from different backgrounds to safely connect with each other during a deeply polarising time in the country, with intense crackdowns on free expression.
In 2021, novelist Burhan Sönmez was elected President of PEN International. He revived focus in the spirit of the Tomorrow Club and committed to reinvigorating youth engagement with strong support from Executive Director Romana Cacchioli and all the staff at PEN International.
In the next congress, Ege Dündar, the project manager of Tomorrow Club, was tasked to lead a team, including Renaud Dossavi, acting chair of the Young Writers Committee, to reignite the initiative at PEN’s Congress in Uppsala, Sweden. Their efforts secured the support of PEN Centres in 46 countries.
At the following Congress, in a historic milestone Dündar was elected the youngest member in PEN International’s history, and got to work on developing a dedicated youth network beyond continents.
By October 2024, the Young Writers Committee was formally established by bright young voices from 58 countries getting together. With Ayi Renaud Dossavi as acting chair and 10 young experts from 5 continents selected as the Steering Committee.
Building the Platform
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Secretary General of PEN Norway, became the youngest-ever Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Partnering with PEN International, its Young Writers Committee and Ege Dündar as project lead, PEN Norway stepped up enabling financial and administrative capacity for the web platform with support from Ammal Ahmed Haj Mohammed, Lars Gudmundson and Kiyya Baloch. The groundwork was laid for a youth-focused global platform to launch.