The Greenwich Pen Women, (GPW), a local branch of the National League of American Pen Women, active in Greenwich since 1955, under the leadership of its retiring president Sarah Darer Littman, made a smooth transition from its cancelled Annual Meeting at a member’s home in Belle Haven to the group’s first collective virtual Zoom meeting held on May 11, 2020.
Incoming president Lee Paine delivered traditional thank you gifts and flowers to Ms. Littman in an appropriate socially distanced way before the on-line meeting, and Ms. Littman symbolically presented Ms. Paine with the president’s gavel.
All future GPW programs, board, social and Arts, Letters and Music meetings are planned to be virtual for the 2020-21 program year.
During the virtual Annual Meeting, Ms. Littman said, “When I agreed to serve as your president two years ago, I’d never served on a board before in any position, much less as president, so it was very much a case of jumping into deep water and trying to figure out how to swim…Being ‘Madame
President’ has certainly helped me stretch and grow… Thank you for trusting me with this position when I had so little experience, and I hope tocontinue to serve Penwomen in other ways in the future.”
Following that, Ms. Paine thanked Ms. Littman for her two year presidency, by saying, “You were the right person at the right time to be our president, because you successfully increased the Pen Women’s usage of social media and integrated it into all that we do, and we are grateful to you!”
Ms. Paine also congratulated Ms. Littman for having received the Pen Women’s prestigious Owl Award this past year, given to a member who is engaged in creative work in Art, Music and/or Letters, who is selected for her outstanding talent and achievements in her field, and in recognition and appreciation of her service to the community, given in gratitude to her by fellow GPW members.
Ms. Littman is an accomplished author of 18 young adult and middle grade novels. Her latest, DEEPFAKE, will be published by Scholastic Press in October. She is on the Writing Department faculty at Western Connecticut State University and teaches at the Yale Writers Workshop.
Ms. Paine, a long-term member of the Greenwich Pen Women, is the first local member to be admitted to the 70+ member group in all three categories of Arts, Letters, and Music.
Well known as a professional photographer and photography teacher, judge and lecturer, she had a column called “Focus on Photos” in the Greenwich Time for 20+ years and then in the Greenwich Citizen for several more, and has been a paid singer in several church choirs and opera choruses over the years; she was the Administrator of the Greenwich Choral Society for six years.
In this time of Covid, the GPW are holding monthly virtual Summer Creative Conversations to keep members in contact with each other and to help inspire the creation of new work. On Saturday, September 19 , from 1:00-2:30pm, the GPW, in collaboration with the Cos Cob Library, will present an eagerly anticipated virtual lecture by Dr. Jan Yager, on her book, “How to Self-Publish Your Book.”
Other PW programs during the 2020-21 season will also feature collaborations with other community organizations.
Persons interested in membership in the Greenwich Pen Women can go to the website, www.greenwichpenwomen.org, to find information about the group and how to join.