National Art Chair Joan Applebaum shares how Pen Women make a lasting impact through their grants and other outreach.

Poet Laureate Georgia Popoff, Central New York Branch vice president of programming, has been awarded the prestigious Academy of American Poets grant. Popoff was one of only 22 laureates from throughout the nation to be awarded the Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, which includes up to $15,000 to implement a community-based program.

Pen Women writers, want to start or finish your memoir, novel, chapbook of poetry, script? The next Pen Woman Writers Retreat, to be hosted at the Pen Arts historic building in Washington, D.C., will take place on May 21-24 and we are accepting applications through May 15.

Joanna S. Lee and Cherrie Amour Woods were the winning poets in the recent non-Pen Woman poetry competition hosted by the NLAPW in the greater Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland areas. The two women read their poetry at Pen Arts in Washington, D.C., this past November.

For the past year, the Central Ohio Branch has been extraordinarily busy. In addition to planning and hosting the NLAPW 51st Biennial with the art exhibit in the Main Gallery of the Priscilla R. Tyson Cultural Arts Center, the branch hosted a concurrent exhibition in The Loft Gallery on the third floor. To top it off, the branch had the largest percentage of growth across the League for the 2023-24.

Three judges from the Santa Clara County Branch, in a blind reading, unanimously chose three winners and two honorable mentions for the 2023-24 Limerick Contest, which took place in March.

The NLAPW recently selected three outstanding women to receive the biannual Shirley Holden Helberg Grants for the Mature Women. Congratulations to the recipients!

NLAPW will have a new, cross-genre competition designed to encourage collaboration among Pen Women. Competition teams may be made up of Pen Women within one branch, multiple branches, or members-at-large.

A group of Pen Women writers got together recently at the Pen Arts Building in Washington, D.C., for a writing retreat. Led by fellow Pen Woman Nancy Dafoe, a talented writer and former NLAPW letters chair, the women worked on their projects, received coaching, and shared their work.