ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of Scottish women’s epistolary networks in the formation of PEN International in the interwar period, with a special focus on the relationship between women writers, the Scottish Renaissance, and Scottish PEN. Women have played an integral part in writers’ congresses, and PEN International attracted well-known women writers and feminists from the outset, including Rebecca West, May Sinclair, Mary Webb, Violet Hunt, and Radclyffe Hall. Despite the contributions of these women, little research has been conducted on the role of women in the foundation of PEN centres around the globe during the interwar period. Given its history, founded as it was by Catharine Dawson-Scott in 1921, this is a significant gap. This chapter begins to fill this lacuna by focusing on the role of literary women’s networks in the growth of Scottish PEN, whose centres sought to promote the unique and independent identity of Scotland’s languages and literatures. Paying particular attention to the correspondence of Willa Muir (1890–1970) and Helen B. Cruickshank (1886–1975) – founding members of Scottish PEN and significant figures in the Scottish Renaissance – the chapter seeks to amplify the voices of women writers within Scottish interwar artistic communities.
