What is Tomorrow Club?

The idea for Tomorrow Club first developed in 1917, when Catherine Amy Dawson Scott started connecting young writers with experienced ones over tea. The vision later inspired PEN International, the world’s largest network of writers today. With a centenary history and centres in over 90 countries, PEN is a global network dedicated to defending freedom of expression. 

Now, with a diverse community of emerging voices in 58 countries, we rekindled Scott's dream, launching the Young Writers Committee and its web platform, Tomorrow Club. We are developing supportive collaborations, networking opportunities and exploring new creative ways for solidarity between young people across borders.

On the web platform, we spotlight young voices through the guidance of local and regional advisors. Drawing attention to their experiences and perspectives, pressing threats they face and how they cope with it all.

The Vision

From Turkey to Serbia, Palestine to Myanmar, and Bangladesh to the USA, young people are raising their voices, shaping their societies and facing enormous challenges. They are often neglected or marginalised, and in the worst cases, criminalised for speaking up. Still, their urgency and dedication innovates new ways to uplift their communities and inspires hope in a volatile time when its much needed.

Tomorrow Club is a space to archive and amplify such voices. To connect brave young people across borders and create exchanges of stories, strategies and solidarity between them. To learn from and support each other.

Divisions deepen on economic, cultural and ideological lines. Youth-led social movements bridge them, focusing attention on a shared future. They have lots in common; reacting to wealth inequality, political corruption, environmental decline and regression of rights .

Many suffer unemployment, lack of support or community, and a shrinking space for free expression, which leads to more demotivation, isolation, or escapism. We need to connect over our shared reality.

Autocracies and algorithms narrow perspectives and mainstream media keeps young voices out.We know little about the experiences of young people in other parts of the world, let alone those nearby with different views. We hope these efforts will open windows of personal experiences for discovery and learning about countries and issues, in fact or fiction, 

What better way to connect than through storytelling, and who better at opening up and connecting strangers than young storytellers and themselves?  To facilitate learning between them, sharing strategies 

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. 

Ege Dündar,

Project Lead at Tomorrow Club, Board Member at PEN International 

Through Tomorrow Club You Can: 

1. Amplify your voice, story and the important issues you want to raise. We will make space for young voices and share them across our networks. Collectively we can build a network of brave young voices and enable exchanges between them. 
2. Be a guest on our podcast series 'The Brave Young Voices of Today and Tomorrow'
3.  Discover and learn from people around your age across borders, their stories, struggles perspectives, work and experiences. We wish to develop new collaborations and strategies to support one another.
4. Connect with the world’s largest association of writers PEN and join it's network for free expression. In case of interest, fill in this form and we can support and follow up your request to join one of PEN’s 90 local centres and be part of their communities.
5. Support your peers and alert us to other young people seeking to speak up or facing risks against their free expression. We can publish their messages, issue calls for solidarity as “Empty Chairs” and explore safe ways to support them from letter writing to creative campaigns. We can connect you to established experts across PEN and sister platforms and civil society organisations who may be able to offer advice, guidance or support.
6. Attend online workshops and events to get to know the community. Meet experts, make connections and ask questions. We hope to make more space in-person  if and where we can secure capacity and partnerships.
7. Join our quarterly newsletter to receive updates on new stories, podcasts, and upcoming activities. Recommendations curated by our regional editors will be shared after each spotlight to encourage further learning around their countries, contexts and interests. 

A 100 Year 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 at the time, the initiative laid the groundwork for what would later evolve into a global movement. 

That vision took form as PEN International, founded by Scott as a worldwide network of writers committed to promoting literature and defending freedom of expression. Today, it is the world’s largest association of writers. 

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 Turkey, titled "İlkyaz" (Early Spring). 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 placed focus and support in the spirit of Tomorrow Club and committed to youth engagement alongisde Executive Director Romana Cacchioli and the board and staff at PEN International.

In the next congress, Dündar and Renaud Dossavi, acting chair of the Young Writers Committee, organised to reignite the initiative at PEN’s 2021 Congress in Uppsala, Sweden. Their efforts secured the support of PEN Centres in 46 countries.

At the following Congress, Dündar was elected the youngest member in PEN International’s history, and got to work on consulting all the local centers in developing a dedicated youth network. 

By October 2024, the Young Writers Committee was formally established by  bright young voices from 58 countries with 10 young experts from 5 continents selected as the Steering Committee. 

Building the Platform 

In 2024, 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.