New York, NY, July 8, 2010—PEN American Center, the largest branch of the world’s oldest literary and human rights organization, announced today the election of four new trustees to their Board of Directors: Morgan Entrekin, Chris Oberbeck, Tess O’Dwyer, and Davis Weinstock.
“Each of the new Trustees brings talent, experience, and a strong belief in PEN’s purposes. We are grateful for their willingness to assist PEN’s literary community in achieving its goals of supporting free expression and advancing literature through international literary fellowship. Each of these new trustees gives PEN’s Board capabilities essential to our work,” said PEN President Anthony Appiah.
Entrekin, Oberbeck, O’Dwyer, and Weinstock will begin their Trustee service immediately and will be formally placed on a ballot sent to PEN’s 3,400 Members in December of 2010. If elected by the Membership, each can serve up to two three-year terms. The results of the election will be announced at PEN’s annual Members’ meeting in March 2011.
In addition to President Appiah, current trustees include Maria Campbell, Ron Chernow, Wendy Gimbel, Beth Gutcheon, Jessica Hagedorn, Larry Kirshbaum, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Jaime Manrique, Claudia Menza, Michael F. Moore, Susanna Reich, Roxana Robinson, Esmeralda Santiago, John Oakes, Hannah Pakula, Walter Pozen, Victoria Redel, Hamilton Robinson, Jr., Elissa Schappell, Annette Tapert, Lynne Tillman, Monique Truong, and Danielle Truscott.
Morgan Entrekin graduated from Stanford and the Radcliffe Publishing Course, and he joined Delacorte Press in 1977, where he worked with such authors as Kurt Vonnegut, Jayne Anne Phillips, Craig Nova, and Richard Brautigan. He moved to Simon & Schuster in 1982, where he acquired books by Richard Ford, Bret Easton Ellis, and Dr. Michael Debakey.
In 1984 Entrekin left to start his own imprint at Atlantic Monthly Press. In 1991, Morgan acquired, with a group of investors, Atlantic Monthly Press. In 1993, he merged the company with Grove Press, publisher of Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, and Harold Pinter, among others.
Entrekin is currently the CEO and Publisher of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., which publishes 100 titles a year. Grove/Atlantic publishes general nonfiction, current affairs, history, biography, narrative journalism, fiction, drama, poetry, and literature in translation. Authors include Sherman Alexie, Mark Bowden, Kiran Desai, Anne Enright, Tim Flannery, Richard Flanagan, Francisco Goldman, Jim Harrison, Donna Leon, Kenzaburo Oe, Kay Ryan, and Tom Stoppard. He is a Member of PEN.
Chris Oberbeck is Managing Partner and a Founder of Saratoga Partners, a New York-based private equity investment firm. His investment and board of director responsibilities include Advanced Lighting Technologies, Inc., Emeritus Corporation, Koppers Inc., CEMA Lighting Products India Pvt. Ltd., and Memen Pharmaceuticals, LLC.
Oberbeck has been a trustee since 1990 of a private foundation which donates primarily to education-oriented charities and scholarships. He started the Renaissance Scholars Fund at Exeter in 1997. He has been a member of the International Chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization for many years.
After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, Oberbeck went on to get a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Mathematics at Brown University. He received his MBA from Columbia University. Oberbeck lives with his wife, the novelist Elizabeth Oberbeck, and four sons in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is an Associate Member of PEN.
Tess O’Dwyer provides strategic planning and fundraising counsel to cultural, civic, and social justice leaders of the nonprofit sector, such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, and WNYC Public Radio. Prior to launching her consultancy, O’Dwyer held leadership positions at some of New York City’s premier cultural nonprofits, among them: Director of Development at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Associate Director of Individual & Major Gifts at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Vice President for Cultural Affairs at the Americas Society. Her performance was ranked in the top ten by the Association of Art Museum Directors in a survey of 200+ museums in the United States. Her record-breaking galas were ranked first in net revenue and top ten in style by Bizbash Magazine.
O’Dwyer holds a Master’s in English from Rutgers, and she served as co-editor of Review: Art and Literature of the Americas. She won the Columbia University Translation Center Award for her translation of Giannina Braschi’s Empire of Dreams (Yale University Press). She also translated the 19th Century Chilean novel Martin Rivas for Oxford University Press. She is an Advisory Board member of Harvard University’s Cultural Agents Initiative, Ars Interpres International, and The Evergreen Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Sigma Iota, Red Pine Society, and Salmagundi Club.
Davis Weinstock is Chairman of Clark & Weinstock, a consulting firm for public affairs, with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Paris. Weinstock counsels leaders of governments and of large, complex organizations—including both multinational corporations and nonprofits—providing strategies related to the challenges and opportunities surrounding public affairs. He has been particularly active in counseling on various types of crises, as well as progressive campaigns and issues, and mergers and acquisitions.
As a writer and producer, Weinstock’s work has included a large number of films, series, and pilots for national networks and the BBC; three plays presented in New York; the feature film Tomorrow; and articles in numerous national publications. He has been president of the Board of Trustees of Hopkins School in New Haven and has headed the boards of the Nation Institute and CORO. He is a director of the W.E.B. Dubois Institute at Harvard University, New Visions for Public Schools, Apollo Inner-City Corporation, Impact Repertory Theater and the Flea Theater in Tribeca.
Weinstock was educated at Harvard College and the London School of Economics. He is an Associate Member of PEN.
PEN American Center is the largest of the 141 centers of International PEN, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. International PEN was founded in 1921 to dispel national, ethnic, and racial hatreds and to promote understanding among all countries. PEN American Center, founded a year later, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. Its 3,400 Members carrying those commitments which were fostered and exemplified by such past Members as James Baldwin, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Arthur Miller, Marianne Moore, Eugene O’Neill, Susan Sontag, and John Steinbeck. To learn more about the PEN American Center, please visit: www.pen.org.