I did a story on the practice of pen twirling in Japan a couple years ago. Since then I have received an email from Pierre Etienne Bastouil who is trying to organize a pen twirling competition in Paris. Despite the popularity of the sport in Japan, he’s having some difficulty finding skilled pen twirlers in Europe. So the call is out, interested pen twirlers should contact me and I will forward you on to Pierre.
In other news, those interested in learning pen twirling might look at the following sites:
Richard D. Ma’s 1999 article for FM magazine.
Pentrix and Penstudioz both offer more detail and how-tos for more complex tricks.
Also, thanks to Wannalearn.com for some of these website pointers.