Annual Veterans Pen Celebration 2022

photo of Jason Kander
2022 Keynote speaker Jason Kander, Army veteran, politician, podcaster, and author

Annual Veterans Pen Celebration 2022

Saturday November 12, 2022 from 2:00-4:00 PM

National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, MO

Join us in person, or watch live on our Facebook page

VVWP started in 1946 as a small group of volunteers who believed that writing can be a form of therapy that can help veterans express some of their emotional distress that they cannot or will not talk about. That mission continues today with the magazine’s three editions per year offering a platform for prose, poetry and graphic arts submitted exclusively by veterans.

This year’s Keynote Speaker is Jason Kander, a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan. He was elected to the Missouri State Legislature in 2008 and as Missouri Secretary of State in 2012. Making him the first millennial ever elected to a statewide office. in 2017 Jason founded “Let America Vote”, a national campaign against voter suppression. His memoir, Outside the Wire, became a New York Times bestseller the following year. Jason is president of Veterans Community Project, a national nonprofit organization, and the host of Majority 54, one of the nation’s most popular political podcasts. His new book, Invisible Storm: A Soldier’s Memoir of Politics and PTSD will go on sale July 2022.