A Reading by Caroline Bergvall @KellyWritersHouse

Kelly Writers House 0:00 pre-show
4:38 start of program

This event is a Kelly Writers House Fellows Program.

CAROLINE BERGVALL is an award-winning poet and sound artist working internationally across many print- sound- and performance-based media, with her work often focusing on the interdisciplinary and the multi-modal. Included in this is a strong focus on multilingual identities and the histories and contexts concealed and contained within language. Her published works include several chapbooks such as Strange Passage (1993) and several book length works such as the trilogy exploring medievalist language: Meddle English (2011), Drift (2014) and Alisoun Sings (2019). Bergvall’s work has also been collected in several anthologies including The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (2015). Along with Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place, Bergvall was an editor of the 2012 anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing By Women. Bergvall has performed or made installation works in many museums and exhibitions worldwide, including Tate Modern, MOMA and the Whitney Biennial. Bergvall has taught at many universities throughout her career, most recently as a visiting professor at Kings College London. She is the recipient of many awards, including a Cholmondeley Award for her book Drift, a Bogliasco Fellowship, and Bergvall was the first ever recipient of the art literary prize Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Bergvall grew up in Switzerland, Norway, France, the United States and England. She studied at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, received an MPhil from the University of Warwick, Britain, and a doctorate from the Dartington College of Arts. She currently resides in London.

For more information visit http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0322.php#28

updated 2 years ago

A Reading by Caroline Bergvall

Kelly Writers House 2022-03-28 | 0:00 pre-show
4:38 start of program

This event is a Kelly Writers House Fellows Program.

CAROLINE BERGVALL is an award-winning poet and sound artist working internationally across many print- sound- and performance-based media, with her work often focusing on the interdisciplinary and the multi-modal. Included in this is a strong focus on multilingual identities and the histories and contexts concealed and contained within language. Her published works include several chapbooks such as Strange Passage (1993) and several book length works such as the trilogy exploring medievalist language: Meddle English (2011), Drift (2014) and Alisoun Sings (2019). Bergvall’s work has also been collected in several anthologies including The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (2015). Along with Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place, Bergvall was an editor of the 2012 anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing By Women. Bergvall has performed or made installation works in many museums and exhibitions worldwide, including Tate Modern, MOMA and the Whitney Biennial. Bergvall has taught at many universities throughout her career, most recently as a visiting professor at Kings College London. She is the recipient of many awards, including a Cholmondeley Award for her book Drift, a Bogliasco Fellowship, and Bergvall was the first ever recipient of the art literary prize Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Bergvall grew up in Switzerland, Norway, France, the United States and England. She studied at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, received an MPhil from the University of Warwick, Britain, and a doctorate from the Dartington College of Arts. She currently resides in London.

For more information visit http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0322.php#28

Speakeasy Open Mic Night

Kelly Writers House 2023-11-30 | 0:00 Pre-event
0:43 Program

Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.

A Reading by Raj Haldar

Kelly Writers House 2023-11-10 | 0:00 Pre-event
3:03 Introduction by Alli Katz
4:35 Presentation by Raj Haldar

Raj Haldar’s first children’s book, P is for Pterodactyl has been nothing short of a phenomenon – spending 26 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List (peaking at #1) since its release in November 2018, with over 500,000 copies sold to date.

But, for close to a decade, Raj has been better known for his critically-praised music under the moniker, Lushlife. In that time he has amassed a fervent global fan base and released award-winning music videos that highlight his erudite lyrics.

As the official DJ to the Philadelphia Eagles, he has been tasked with programming a new, cutting-edge musical experience for fans in the stadium at home games for the last five seasons. As a composer, Raj’s music is a constant fixture on Nick. Jr and has been featured in the Lonely Island film, Pop Star, Netflix / Dreamworks' animated series, Kipo and Andrew Niccol's ANON with Clive Owen among many others.

Raj’s recent early reader chapter book series Word Travelers is in development for television with Mainframe Studios. TheHis latest children’s book entitled, This Book is Banned hit shelves this September 2023, and has been buzzed about as the first kids book to offer a lighthearted entrypoint to understanding the serious issues around book banning and censorship.

Raj lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his wife and two daughters. His work has been featured by The Washington Post, Interview Magazine, NPR, VICE, Pitchfork, Funny or Die, Village Voice, Mental Floss, BBC, SPIN, and many more.

Kleenex/LILIPUT: A Punk Rock Journey with Grace Ambrose

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-27 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
6:13 Program
51:13 Q&A

Join us for a conversation with Grace Ambrose (C’11), editor of Kleenex/LiLiPUT (Thrilling Living), a lavishly illustrated English-language edition of Marlene Marder’s German-language diary documenting her time in Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Zurich’s first all-female punk band, and most important musical export of any gender or genre. Neither memoir nor scrapbook, but something defiantly in the middle, Kleenex/LiLiPUT is a compelling example of what it looks like to document one’s own life, and all the insights and messiness that entails. This project is an interpretation, a translation, a republication, an attempt to expand and enhance Marlene’s unruly original. The book recounts touring, recording, and music business dealings, all from the perspective of Marder, the band’s guitarist. It is an important document of what it was like to participate in the burgeoning music industry, just as punk was taking off.

Grace Ambrose (C '11) is a writer and editor based in Kansas City, MO. She was previously coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll, the world’s longest continuously published punk periodical. She runs the Thrilling Living record label and is the editor of the book Kleenex/LiLiPUT about the seminal Swiss band of the same name.

A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF BERNADETTE MAYER

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-26 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
8:45 Program

Please join us for a very special evening celebrating the life and work of poet and artist Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022). Mayer's revolutionary writing changed the landscape of contemporary poetry dramatically. Known as a second-generation New York School poet, her contributions to the art include her more than thirty books of poetry and prose, her reinvention of poetic forms such sonnets, letters, and journals, and the creation of several time-based durational writing projects. She is also known for her radical generosity as a teacher and community organizer. Mayer's writing experiments have been inspirational for generations of writers encouraging a focus on process, collaboration and the daily. It's impossible to express all of the ways Bernadette Mayer's work is necessary and enlivening — so please join us to hear from our wonderful speakers including long-time friends, family, and students close to Mayer's work. Our speakers for this event — Lee Ann Brown, Brenda Coultas, Philip Good, Julia Levitan, Emily Rush, Max Warsh, and Marie Warsh — will be sharing remembrances, and reading from and discussing Mayer's work, influence, and legacy.

The Little Magazine

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-19 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
12:03 Program
59:13 Q&A

Join us for a conversation about the past, present, and future of the little magazine with Matthew Shen Goodman of The Baffler, Mark Krotov of n+1, and Sarah Leonard of Lux, hosted by Jess Bergman (C’14) of The Baffler. What makes a magazine little? In their influential 1947 study The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich defined the little magazine as “a magazine designed to print artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses.” Despite their inherent marginality — the “little” in little magazine refers to the size of its imagined audience, not to its staff or budget, though they tend to be small too — these periodicals have remained a more or less unbroken literary tradition since the turn of the 20th century, from Poetry to The Partisan Review to Callaloo, Bitch, and emerging outlets like Parapraxis. Even as many individual magazines have folded, facing difficult financial or cultural headwinds in a contracting media industry, the movement has been rejuvenated again and again by a new generation of writers and editors who, in the words of Offman, Allen, and Ulrich, are “stimulated by some form of discontent” with the status quo.

Jess Bergman is a senior editor at The Baffler and a contributing writer at Jewish Currents. She worked at the Kelly Writers House from 2010 to 2014.

Matthew Shen Goodman is a writer and editor in New York whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, n+1 and other outlets. He is the editor-in-chief of The Baffler, and a contributing editor at Triple Canopy. He is working on two forthcoming books: Lording, a novel about social workers, and American Accomplice, a nonfiction book about Asian American conservatives (both Astra House).

Mark Krotov is the coeditor and publisher of n+1.

Sarah Leonard is the editor-in-chief of Lux and a member of the Dissent editorial board.

A reading by Caren Beilin & Hilary Plum: Whenever We Feel Like It [

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-18 | Hosted by Michelle Taransky

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
10:53 Introduction
12:36 Caren Beilin
38:52 Hilary Plum
1:05:02 Q&A

Caren Beilin is the author of the novel Revenge of the Scapegoat (Dorothy, 2022), winner of the Vermont Book Award for fiction. Other books include Blackfishing the IUD (Wolfman Books, 2019), SPAIN (Rescue Press, 2018), and The University of Pennsylvania (Noemi Press, 2014). Her work appears in Fence, AGNI, and Dreginald. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and lives close by, in Vermont.

Hilary Plum (she/her) is the author of five books, including Excisions, a volume of poetry (Black Lawrence, 2023); Hole Studies, an essay collection (Fonograf, 2022);and the novel Strawberry Fields, which won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose (2018). With Zach Savich she edits the Open Prose Series at Rescue Press. She teaches at Cleveland State and in the NEOMFA program, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center. Recent work has appeared in Granta, Astra, American Poetry Review, College Literature, the Cleveland Review of Books,& elsewhere.

Novelist Alissa Nutting

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-17 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
5:15 Program
40:09 Q&A

Alissa Nutting is a novelist, screenwriter, and showrunner, most recently of the Adult Swim & HBO MAX animated series Teenage Euthanasia, whose second season debuts in July, as well as the HBO MAX original comedy Made For Love based on her New York Times Editor’s Choice novel of the same name.

Novelist Elizabeth Silver

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-17 | In conversation with Lorene Cary about The Majority
Sponsored by: the Wexler Fund

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
7:02 Program
49:17 Q&A

Careers in Journalism and Media

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-06 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
4:25 Program
40:08 Q&A

Hoping to work in journalism, media, or publishing after college? The annual Careers in Journalism and New Media alumni panel — co-sponsored by the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize — focuses on how you can prepare for first jobs and careers in print, broadcast and online media, publishing, and related fields, as well as how to make decisions about extracurriculars, internships, and grad school in these areas. Moderated by Isabella Simonetti of the Wall Street Journal, the conversation will feature past winners of the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize: Maddie Ngo of The New York Times, Ashley Parker of The Washington Post, and Jason Schwartz of Sports Illustrated. For more info about the prize and a full list of winners, visit the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize page.

ASHLEY PARKER is Senior National Political Correspondent for The Washington Post. She covered all four years of the Trump presidency, as well as his 2016 campaign, and served as the White House Bureau Chief under President Biden. Parker is also a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. She was part of The Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2018, for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. And she was part of The Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2022, for their coverage of the causes, costs and aftermath of the Jan. 6.

JASON SCHWARTZ is the senior editor for investigations and enterprise at Sports Illustrated. Previously, he worked as a media reporter for POLITICO, a senior editor for ESPN The Magazine and in ESPN’s Outside the Lines investigative unit, and as an editor and writer for Boston magazine. His writing has also appeared in Grantland, Slate, and the Boston Globe, among other places.

ISABELLA SIMONETTI is a media reporter at The Wall Street Journal where she covers cable news, streaming and sports media. She joined The Journal from The New York Times where she was the David Carr Fellow in Business Reporting. At The Times, Isabella covered breaking business economics news and wrote a number of enterprise stories on topics ranging from media to personal finance. Over the course of her fellowship, she wrote half a dozen stories for the front page of The Times Previously, Isabella was a media reporter at the New York Observer. Isabella is originally from New York City and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, she served as president of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Political Reporting

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-06 | Nora Magid Mentorship Prize 20th anniversary alumni panel

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
2:41 Program
49:46 Q&A

At join us for a discussion of political reporting, featuring Ashley Parker of The Washington Post, and Matt Flegenheimer and Luis Ferre-Sadurni of The New York Times, moderated by bestselling author Jessica Goodman.

October Speakeasy

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-05 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
8:30 Program

A conversation with Gretchen Morgenson

Kelly Writers House 2023-10-04 | Weber Symposium
Hosted by Al Filreis

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
8:00 Program
57:30 Q&A

Gretchen Morgenson is the Senior Financial Reporter in the Investigations unit at NBC News, a position she assumed in Dec. 2019. Her stories appear on NBCNews.com and as segments on NBC News network, cable and streaming television shows. Previously, Ms. Morgenson spent two years as Senior Special Writer in the Investigations unit at The Wall Street Journal, and almost 20 years as assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at The New York Times. She began covering world financial markets for The Times in May 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street in which she revealed deep conflicts of interest among powerful and respected brokerage firm analysts. She is co-author, with Joshua Rosner, of Reckless Endangerment, a 2011 New York Times bestseller about the origins of the mortgage crisis, and These are the Plunderers, a Wall Street Journal bestseller scrutinizing the private equity industry published in May 2023.

For more information: https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/1023.php#3

An interview about the interview (part 2 of 2)

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-29 | Link to part 1: youtube.com/live/KJSnXVjCBvs

Victor Bockris in conversation with Al Filreis

Time-stamps:
0:00 Part 2
20:13 Q&A

Victor Bockris graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. After graduation, he founded Telegraph Press, a seminal small press in the early seventies. He also had several books of poems and prose published, including In America and The Joe DiMaggio Victor Bockris Special. He worked with collaborator Andrew Wylie under the name “Brockis-Wylie” to publish a number of interviews under the column “Electric Generation” for The Drummer. Their crowning achievement was Ali: Fighter Poet Prophet, published by the legendary Maurice Girodias on the day Ali regained his heavyweight crown in October 1974. After the duo broke up amicably, Bockris went on to publish widely in Interview and High Times. He worked freelance for Andy Warhol and William Burroughs and became a fixture on the punk scene.

In the 1980s he published a trilogy of portraits: A Report from the Bunker With William Burroughs, Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie, and Uptight: the Velvet Underground Story. In the 1990s, he turned to biography, publishing the trilogy Warhol: The Biography, Keith Richards: The Biography, and Transformer: The Lou Reed Story.

Bockris’s twenty-seven year run as the poet laureate of the New York Underground led him to develop the book Beat Punks: New York's Underground Culture from the Beat Generation to the Punk Explosion.

An interview about the interview (part 1 of 2)

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-28 | Link to part 2: youtube.com/live/w9rAsUNgBpA

Victor Bockris in conversation with Al Filreis

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
2:13 Program

Victor Bockris graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. After graduation, he founded Telegraph Press, a seminal small press in the early seventies. He also had several books of poems and prose published, including In America and The Joe DiMaggio Victor Bockris Special. He worked with collaborator Andrew Wylie under the name “Brockis-Wylie” to publish a number of interviews under the column “Electric Generation” for The Drummer. Their crowning achievement was Ali: Fighter Poet Prophet, published by the legendary Maurice Girodias on the day Ali regained his heavyweight crown in October 1974. After the duo broke up amicably, Bockris went on to publish widely in Interview and High Times. He worked freelance for Andy Warhol and William Burroughs and became a fixture on the punk scene.

In the 1980s he published a trilogy of portraits: A Report from the Bunker With William Burroughs, Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie, and Uptight: the Velvet Underground Story. In the 1990s, he turned to biography, publishing the trilogy Warhol: The Biography, Keith Richards: The Biography, and Transformer: The Lou Reed Story.

Bockris’s twenty-seven year run as the poet laureate of the New York Underground led him to develop the book Beat Punks: New York's Underground Culture from the Beat Generation to the Punk Explosion.

Anthony Cody and Jena Osman: Reading and Q&A

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-27 | Hosted by Syd Zolf
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
7:47 Introduction
13:00 Jena Osman
37:41 Anthony Cody
1:04:15 Q&A

Anthony Cody is the author of The Rendering (Omnidawn, 2023) and Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Prize. His debut has been recognized as a winner of a 2022 Whiting Award, a 2021 American Book Award, a 2020 Southwest Book Award, and a Poets & Writers 2020 Debut Poet. Anthony was a finalist for the National Book Award, PEN America / Jean Stein Award, L.A. Times Book Award, among others. He is a CantoMundo fellow from Fresno, CA with lineage in the Bracero Program and Dust Bowl. He collaborates with Juan Felipe Herrera’s Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio, serves as a poetry editor for Omnidawn, and is co-publisher of Noemi Press. Anthony teaches in the low-residency MFA at Randolph College.

Jena Osman’s books of poems include Motion Studies (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019), Corporate Relations (Burning Deck, 2014), Public Figures (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Network (Fence Books 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009), An Essay in Asterisks (Roof Books, 2004) and The Character (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). A Very Large Array: Selected Poems is forthcoming from DABA Press, October 2023. Osman was a 2006 Pew Fellow in the Arts and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Howard Foundation, and the Fund for Poetry. She co-founded and co-edited the literary journal Chain with Juliana Spahr for twelve years. She teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Temple University, in Philadelphia.

Samuel Freedman in conversation with Dick Polman

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-15 | Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights
Povich Journalism Program

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
9:26 Program
49:31 Audience Q&A

A Conversation with Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-13 | Bernheimer Symposium
With support from the Brodsky Gallery

Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
5:00 Program
49:05 Audience Q&A

Jillian Tamaki is a cartoonist, illustrator, and educator raised in Calgary, Alberta. She is the author of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novels SuperMutant Magic Academy and Boundless, and the author-illustrator of two picture books, including most recently Our Little Kitchen. With her cousin Mariko Tamaki, she is the co-creator of the young adult graphic novels SKIM and This One Summer, which won a Governor General’s Award and Caldecott Honor. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian writer living in California. She is the co-creator of the graphic novels Skim and This One Summer with Jillian Tamaki, and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me with Rosemary Valero-O’Connell. She writes superhero comics for DC Comics, Darkhorse and Marvel. Mariko was the recipient of the Eisner for Best Writer in 2020. Collectively, her works have received Printz Honors, Eisner, Ignatz, Ringo and Prism awards. She is the curator of the Abrams LGBTQ imprint, Surely Books.

Prompt Battle-Off with GPT Joust

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-08 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
10:51 Program
51:20 Round 1 Results
1:05:07 Round 2
1:46:16 Closing Remarks

Who will claim the title of Prompt Champion? Do you have what it takes to turn out the best creative work with ChatGPT? Enter our Prompt Battle-off with GPT Joust to show off your lightning-fast wit and unleash fascinating storytelling possibilities from Large Language Models. We’ll have a console set up ready for the joust. You're also welcome to come just to hang, learn more about ChatGPT, and check out the event.

The event is co-hosted by the Penn Libraries Research Data and Digital Scholarship team. Join the AI User Group to connect with a vibrant community of mindful practitioners, stay informed about the latest AI news, and explore responsible use-cases of AI in the real world. Monthly meetups center on practical applications of Artificial Intelligence for research, fostering collaborative learning and meaningful discussions.

SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT

Kelly Writers House 2023-09-07 | Time-stamps:
0:00 Pre-event
14:03 Program

Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.

Al Filreis and David Roberts Discuss Primo Levi: Only Victims Can Truly Forgive

Kelly Writers House 2023-08-24 | Al Filreis and David Roberts discuss David's Substack Post: "Primo Levi: Only Victims Can Truly Forgive"

Link to David's Substack and the post: robertsdavidn.substack.com/about

The Substack "Sparks From Culture" is a community of people who care deeply about culture and literature. Subscribers receive each Saturday a weekly post featuring culture, literature, and other works of art that provide takeaways––"aha moments––about life as well as periodic recommendations of what to read, listen to and watch.

Senior Capstone Celebration 2023

Kelly Writers House 2023-06-13 | Celebration of the 2023 graduating seniors in the Writers House community!

Timestamps:
0:00 Pre-event
4:43 Introduction by Al Filreis
14:28 Madeleine Song, introduced by Alli Katz
21:37 Sofia Sears, introduced by Julia Bloch
29:25 Rob Soslow, introduced by Al Filreis
36:58 Habib Salim, introduced by Jessica Lowenthal
43:19 Emma Bloom, introduced by Jamie-Lee Josselyn
50:14 Savannah Sparks, introduced by Zach Carduner
56:32 Peyton Toups, introduced by Jamie-Lee Josselyn
1:01:18 Maya Berardi, introduced by Al Filreis
1:09:16 Mahailya Hinsey, introduced by Alli Katz
1:14:57 Andrés Gonzalez, introduced by Zach Carduner
1:22:53 Gabriela Alvarado, introduced by Jessica Lowenthal
1:28:42 Favor Idika, introduced by Andrew Beal
1:32:56 Henry McDevitt, introduced by Alli Katz
1:39:53 Angela Ji, introduced by Al Filreis
1:48:23 Andrew Depass, introduced by Zach Carduner
1:53:12 Sophie Nadel, introduced by Al Filreis
1:59:54 Farah Sayed, introduced by Jamie-Lee Josselyn
2:04:47 Wes Matthews, introduced by Zach Carduner
2:11:53 Kendall Owens, introduced by Al Filreis
2:23:11 Closing Remarks by Al Filreis

KWH wins award from the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia 2023

Kelly Writers House 2023-06-07 | The Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania was presented with an award by the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia—at its annual celebration on June 6, 2023.

Joan Retallack 02/28/01

Kelly Writers House 2023-05-30 | A reading and Q&A with author Joan Retallack.

Creative Writing Honors Thesis Reading [2023]

Kelly Writers House 2023-05-19 | April 26, 2023—A number of our graduating seniors have been working hard to complete their Creative Writing thesis projects — long-form creative literary works in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, and mixed genres that serve as the capstones to their time at Penn as writers. Join us in person or online for a celebration of their collective achievements. Several seniors will read from their projects.

A Celebration of Anthony DeCurtis

Kelly Writers House 2023-05-14 | What do a punk rocker, TV producer, YA novelist, and food critic have in common? They are all former students of Anthony DeCurtis, who has taught his famous culture writing courses at Penn for twenty years. Join us for readings, talks, and toasts by an extraordinary line-up of Anthony’s former students. A delicious reception will follow. The event is open to everyone!

GRACE AMBROSE (C'11) lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she is a co-founder of the city’s first mobile syringe exchange. She was previously coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll, the world’s longest continuously published punk periodical. She runs the Thrilling Living record label and is the editor of the forthcoming book Kleenex/LiLiPUT about the seminal Swiss band of the same name.

CECILIA CORRIGAN (C'11) is a New York-based writer and performer. In addition to winning the Plonsker Prize for Titanic in 2013 and being selected as Issue Project Room’s 2016 Artist in Residence, she has also been commissioned by Bedlam theater company to write a new play for their forthcoming season. Her script Tulum is currently under option with Billy Porter's Icognegro Productions. Follow her @ceciliakcecilia.

JESSICA GOODMAN (C'12) is the New York Times bestselling author of young adult thrillers They Wish they Were Us, They’ll Never Catch Us, The Counselors, and The Legacies. She is the former op-ed editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, and was part of the 2017 team that won a National Magazine Award in personal service. She has also held editorial positions at Entertainment Weekly and HuffPost, and her work has been published in outlets like Glamour, Condé Nast Traveler, The Cut, Elle, Bustle, and Marie Claire.
ALEX KOPPELMAN (C'05) was most recently a managing editor at CNN, where among other things he oversaw the Media, Tech, Transportation and Consumer teams. He's also been an editor at places including The New Yorker and Guardian US, where a series he edited won prizes including an Emmy and a National Magazine Award.

GWEN LEWIS (C'14) is a West Philly native and graduate of the College. Working at the intersection of technology and entertainment, she’s built product experiences for Comcast NBC Universal, Google, and Disney. She also writes creative non-fiction and teaches yoga to West Philadelphians.

GREG MAUGHMAN (C'05) lives in Philadelphia, PA where he founded and ran a glorified clown college/performance venue called the Philly Improv Theater for 17 years. Since stepping back from that work day-to-day in 2020, he now enjoys attending theater without worrying about what is going on behind the scenes.

JOE PINSKER (C'13) is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where he covers "the pursuit of happiness" for the paper's Personal Finance section. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine, where he covered business and economics, and then families and parenting. At Penn, Joe took two arts-and-culture writing classes with Anthony, and wrote his honors thesis (about how musicians in Philadelphia make a living) under Anthony's guidance.

ALI JAFFE RAMIS (C'14) is a Peabody Award-winning segment producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has produced over 200 guest interviews for the show with celebrities ranging from Will Ferrell to Greta Thunberg. Ali’s writing has been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was featured on an episode of The New York Times’s podcast, “The Daily.”

JULIA RUBIN(C'10) is the editorial director for culture and features at Vox. She launched The Goods in 2018 and was previously the executive editor of Racked, where she originated the site's longform program. Prior to joining Vox Media, Julia was a features editor at Teen Vogue.

HILLARY REINSBERG (C'11)is the Editor In Chief of The Infatuation and Zagat, and the Head of Content for Connected Commerce at J.P. Morgan Chase, which acquired The Infatuation and Zagat in 2021. In this role, she oversees all dining, travel, and shopping content at Chase. Since joining as The Infatuation’s first employee in 2014, Hillary has been responsible for building The Infatuation’s editorial presence in cities around the world, hiring its entire editorial staff, and shaping the brand voice. She also played a key role in The Infatuation’s 2018 acquisition of Zagat from Google, and led the effort to bring Zagat back into print in 2019/2020. Before The Infatuation, she was an early member of BuzzFeed’s news division. While at Penn, she was Under The Button's founding editor

A conversation with Wayne Koestenbaum

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-26 | Writers House Fellows Program

Born and raised in San Jose, California, WAYNE KOESTENBAUM is a poet, critic, novelist, artist, and performer, having published nineteen books, including The Queen’s Throat, which was a national Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Praised by many for his work’s blend of risk and joy, Susan Sontag called The Queen’s Throat a “brilliant book.” His other books include Camp Marmalade, The Pink Trance Notebooks, My 1980s & Other Essays, Andy Warhol: A Biography, and Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard University, he received an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His poems and essays have been widely published in anthologies, including The Believer, The Iowa Review, Artforum, and The New Yorker. In 2017, his first piano/vocal record, Lounge Act, was released by Ugly Duckling Presse records. In 2020, Koestenbaum won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Previously an Associate Professor of English at Yale, he is now a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

For more information visit https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0423.php#25

A Reading By Wayne Koestenbaum

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-25 | Writers House Fellows Program

Born and raised in San Jose, California, WAYNE KOESTENBAUM is a poet, critic, novelist, artist, and performer, having published nineteen books, including The Queen’s Throat, which was a national Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Praised by many for his work’s blend of risk and joy, Susan Sontag called The Queen’s Throat a “brilliant book.” His other books include Camp Marmalade, The Pink Trance Notebooks, My 1980s & Other Essays, Andy Warhol: A Biography, and Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard University, he received an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His poems and essays have been widely published in anthologies, including The Believer, The Iowa Review, Artforum, and The New Yorker. In 2017, his first piano/vocal record, Lounge Act, was released by Ugly Duckling Presse records. In 2020, Koestenbaum won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Previously an Associate Professor of English at Yale, he is now a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

For more information visit https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0423.php#24

Speakeasy Open Mic Night

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-20 | Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.

Spy Daughter, Queer Girl

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-12 | A conversation with author Leslie Absher

In her memoir Spy Daughter, Queer Girl, Leslie Absher pursues the truth: of her family, her identity, and her father's role in Greece's CIA-backed junta. As a guide, Absher brings readers to the shade of plane trees in Greece, to queer discos in Boston, and to tense diner meals with her aging CIA father. As a memoirist, Absher renders a lifetime of hazy, shapeshifting truths in high-definition vibrance.

Leslie Absher is a journalist and personal essay writer. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Salon, Ms., Independent, Greek Reporter, and San Francisco Magazine. She was awarded an honorable mention for non-fiction by Bellevue Literary Review and lives in Oakland, California with her artist/comic book writer wife. Visit her at leslieabsher.com.

Stand-Ups Sit Down

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-10 | Lew Schneider in conversation with Al Filreis

Lew Schneider (C'83) is a writer, producer and director of the ABC comedy The Goldbergs. Other credits include his own HBO stand-up special, and the primetime shows American Dad, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Men of a Certain Age (which won a Peabody Award but very few people watched), and Everybody Loves Raymond (which won Emmy Awards and more people watched).

Do Not Draw Me: Making Art in India’s Northeast

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-04 | This presentation at the Kelly Writers House will address non-fiction graphic reportage, community art practices, documentary sketches, and collaborative projects such as Singh’s edited book Centrepiece (Zubaan, 2017). Singh views drawing as a feminist practice shaped by political exigencies and historical circumstances of living and working in northeastern India. It is a practice that requires constant negotiation of ethical and aesthetic norms, including considerations of when and what not to draw. The conversation will focus on Singh’s NRC (National Register of Citizens) Sketchbook (2018-2019), published in Huffington Post (India), and its representation of women’s voices, indigeneity, citizenship, dissent, censorship, and democracy. Such projects are a form of solidarity and resistance or singing in dark times.

Writing Food in Asian America

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-03 | "Food writing" is having a moment. Everywhere from film and TV to Instagram posts and TikTok videos, what we eat and how we eat it is in. But the way we use words around food, especially immigrant cuisine, is dated at best, Orientalist at worst. Join a panel of fiction and nonfiction writers as we discuss what it means to use words around immigrant cultures and cuisines, and think through how we talk and write about what we eat. Hosted by Piyali Bhattacharya, recipient of the 2022–2023 Beltran Award for Teaching and Mentoring.

PIYALI BHATTACHARYA’s short stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic, among other publications. She is the editor of the N.E.A. grant-winning anthology Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion. She holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A. from SOAS—University of London, and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison, where she was winner of the Peter Straub Award for Fiction. She is the Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has won the Beltran Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring in Creative Writing.

ERIC KIM is a New York Times staff writer and essayist born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. His debut cookbook, Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home (Clarkson Potter, 2022), was an instant New York Times Best Seller. A former digital manager for the Food Network, contributing editor for Saveur magazine and senior editor for Food52 (where he amassed a devoted readership for his "Table for One" column), he now hosts regular videos on NYT Cooking's YouTube channel and writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine. Eric taught writing and literature as a graduate fellow at Columbia University, and his essays have been featured in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine and The Best American Food Writing. He lives with his rescue pup, Quentin Compson, in New York City.

LILLIAN LI is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

MAYUKH SEN is the author of Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (2021), which was named a best book of 2021 by NPR, one of the Wall Street Journal’s favorite books of 2021, a New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick, and a nominee for the 2022 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. He is currently writing a biography of the actress Merle Oberon, to be published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2025. He has won a James Beard Award and an IACP Award for his food writing, and his work has been anthologized in three editions of The Best American Food Writing. He teaches creative writing at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.

Poet, translator, editor Matvei Yankelevich

Kelly Writers House 2023-04-03 | Matvei Yankelevich is a poet, translator, and editor. His books include the poetry collections Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt (Black Square) and Dead Winter (Fonograf), as well as the translations Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook) and Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation for Me to Think (NYRB Poets; with Eugene Ostashevsky), winner of the 2014 National Translation Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, among others. In the 1990s, he co-founded Ugly Duckling Presse where he edited and designed books, periodicals, and ephemera for more than twenty years. As of 2022, he is editor of World Poetry Books, a nonprofit publisher of poetry in translation. He teaches translation and book arts at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Ahmad Almallah teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Penn. His first book of poems, Bitter English, was published in the Phoenix Poets Series from the University of Chicago Press. He received the 2018 Edith Goldberg Paulson Memorial Prize for Creative Writing, and his set of poems “Recourse” won the 2017 Blanche Colton Williams Fellowship. He holds a PhD in Arabic literature from Indiana University Bloomington and an MFA in poetry from Hunter College.

Unsovereign Elements: Geological Poetics in Contemporary Art from the Caribbean and its Diaspora

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-30 | Brodsky Gallery exhibition opening, curatorial tour, and artists in conversation

Featuring artists from the Caribbean and its diaspora, this exhibition, curated by Cecilia González Godino, examines the ambiguous role of geological elements in the (re)production of the archipelago — certainly exhausted by modernity as discursive instruments, yet always retaining a poetic potential that far exceeds their materiality.

Come meet the artists in conversation, followed by a curatorial tour and reception.

This Brodsky Gallery exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Student Initiatives Fund at the Kelly Writers House, the Brodsky Gallery Fund, the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH), the GAPSA-Provost Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Innovation, the Price Lab for Digital Humanities, and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CLALS).

A Conversation with Literary Agent Eric Smith

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-30 | Applebaum Publisher and Editors Series

ERIC SMITH is a literary agent, young adult author, and editor from Elizabeth, New Jersey. As an agent with P.S. Literary, he’s worked on New York Times bestselling and award-winning books. His recent novels include the YALSA Best Books for Young Readers selection Don’t Read the Comments (Inkyard Press, 2020), You Can Go Your Own Way (Inkyard Press, 2021), and the anthology Battle of the Bands (Candlewick, 2021), co-edited with award-winning author Lauren Gibaldi. His latest book, Jagged Little Pill: The Novel, was written with Alanis Morissette, Academy award-winner Diablo Cody, and Glen Ballard, and is an adaptation of the Grammy and Tony award winning musical. Eric's other books include the IndieBound bestseller The Geek’s Guide to Dating (Quirk), the Inked duology (Bloomsbury), and The Girl and the Grove (Flux). His writing has sold into nine languages. A lifelong lover of writing and books, he holds degrees from from Kean University and Arcadia University, where he currently mentors MFA students. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son, and enjoys video games, pop punk, and crying over every movie.

YA Authors in Conversation about Craft

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-30 | Lucy F. Demarco Program

Ever considered writing a YA novel? Join three celebrated special guest YA authors for a panel event and conversation on writing craft specific to a young adult audience. Featuring #1 New York Times bestselling author and Penn alumna Chloe Gong, National Book Award finalist Candice Iloh, and award-winning author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens Anica Mrose Rissi, hosted by Penn faculty Nova Ren Suma. Open to the Penn community and to the public. Book signing to follow.

CHLOE GONG is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and its sequel Our Violent Ends. She is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she double-majored in English and International Relations. Born in Shanghai and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, Chloe is now located in New York pretending to be a real adult.

CANDICE ILOH is a first generation Nigerian-American writer, dancer, and author of the 2020 National Book Award finalist and 2021 Printz Honoree, Every Body Looking. They have performed their work around the country, most notably at Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City; the Women in Poetry & Hip Hop celebration at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore; and as part of the Africa In Motion performing arts series at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Competitively, Iloh has advanced to the final rounds of the Graffiti DC Slam, Beltway Poetry Slam, and 11th Hour Poetry Slam. Candice is currently writing their third novel, Salt the Water, while touring their second, Break This House (Out May 24, 2022). They live and work in Philadelphia with their cats Maxinne and Charlie.

ANICA MROSE RISSI is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens, including the Anna, Banana chapter book series; the middle grade collection Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories; the picture book Love, Sophia on the Moon; and the young adult novel Nobody Knows But You. Her next book, Wishing Season, a middle grade novel set on the Maine island where she grew up, comes out in June 2023 and is available for preorder now. Anica’s essays have been published by The Writer and the New York Times, and she plays fiddle in and writes lyrics for the band Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves. She currently lives near Princeton, New Jersey, with her very good dog, Sweet Potato.

NOVA REN SUMA is the author of A Room Away from the Wolves and the #1 New York Times bestselling The Walls Around Us, both finalists for an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She also wrote the novels Imaginary Girls, 17 & Gone, and Dani Noir and is co-editor of the story & writing craft anthology FORESHADOW: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading & Writing YA. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Philadelphia.

YA Authors in Conversation about Craft

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-29 | Lucy F. Demarco Program

Ever considered writing a YA novel? Join three celebrated special guest YA authors for a panel event and conversation on writing craft specific to a young adult audience. Featuring #1 New York Times bestselling author and Penn alumna Chloe Gong, National Book Award finalist Candice Iloh, and award-winning author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens Anica Mrose Rissi, hosted by Penn faculty Nova Ren Suma. Open to the Penn community and to the public. Book signing to follow.

CHLOE GONG is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and its sequel Our Violent Ends. She is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she double-majored in English and International Relations. Born in Shanghai and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, Chloe is now located in New York pretending to be a real adult.

CANDICE ILOH is a first generation Nigerian-American writer, dancer, and author of the 2020 National Book Award finalist and 2021 Printz Honoree, Every Body Looking. They have performed their work around the country, most notably at Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City; the Women in Poetry & Hip Hop celebration at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore; and as part of the Africa In Motion performing arts series at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Competitively, Iloh has advanced to the final rounds of the Graffiti DC Slam, Beltway Poetry Slam, and 11th Hour Poetry Slam. Candice is currently writing their third novel, Salt the Water, while touring their second, Break This House (Out May 24, 2022). They live and work in Philadelphia with their cats Maxinne and Charlie.

ANICA MROSE RISSI is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens, including the Anna, Banana chapter book series; the middle grade collection Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories; the picture book Love, Sophia on the Moon; and the young adult novel Nobody Knows But You. Her next book, Wishing Season, a middle grade novel set on the Maine island where she grew up, comes out in June 2023 and is available for preorder now. Anica’s essays have been published by The Writer and the New York Times, and she plays fiddle in and writes lyrics for the band Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves. She currently lives near Princeton, New Jersey, with her very good dog, Sweet Potato.

NOVA REN SUMA is the author of A Room Away from the Wolves and the #1 New York Times bestselling The Walls Around Us, both finalists for an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She also wrote the novels Imaginary Girls, 17 & Gone, and Dani Noir and is co-editor of the story & writing craft anthology FORESHADOW: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading & Writing YA. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Philadelphia.

A Conversation with Jason Reynolds

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-28 | Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

Born in Washington, DC and raised in Oxon Hill, JASON REYNOLDS is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen books. At nine years old, he drew inspiration from rap music, and began writing poetry. He now writes primarily for elementary and middle school aged kids, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, Stuntboy, in the Meantime, and Long Way Down, which was named a Newbery Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards. His book, Ghost, was a National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature. He also wrote a Marvel Comic, Miles Morales: Spider-Man, in 2017, just three years after his first novel, When I Was the Greatest, won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

For more information visit https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0323.php#28

A Reading By Jason Reynolds

Voices of the Sophomore Class

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-23 | The Sophomore Class Board is hosting an open-mic night at the Writers House to showcase the talented and diverse voices of the Class of 2025!

Come to KWH to hear your classmates perform and eat some free food. Interested in being considered as a performer? (poetry, music, comedy, fiction, your choice). Fill out this form to submit a piece (the Sophomore Class Board will select up to 10 speakers)

From Borderlands to Bathhouses

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-23 | Join us for a live reading by Jesús I. Valles and Ricardo Bracho!

In this live reading and conversation, playwrights Jesús I. Valles (they/them) and Ricardo A. Bracho will engage the U.S./Mexico borderlands and bathhouses as insurgent geographies of queer Latinx life. Putting excerpts from two of Jesús’s plays in conversation with one another, the playwrights consider their personal experiences as queer artist-scholars whose work reflects on colonial hauntings, familial memories, and erotic desires. Their reading and conversation will be followed by a Q&A with the audience. Lunch will be provided at the conclusion of the conversation.

Speculative Poetics for Video Games and AI

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-22 | ...

Aldon Nielsen, William J. Harris, Tyrone Williams

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-21 | A.L. Nielsen, the first recipient of the Larry Neal Award for poetry, is the author of the recent volumes Back Pages: Selected Poems, Sufferhead, Tray and Spider Cone. With Grammy-nominated Ethelbert Miller, he published the hybrid memoir/interview book MemeWars. Two of his spoken word collections are streaming on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and others: Sometimes I Wonder Can a Cigar Box Hold My Blues and More Blues, Rage and Hollers. Nielsen has taught at Howard University, San Jose State, UCLA, Loyola Marymount, Penn State and Central China Normal University. His most recent work of criticism is The Inside Songs of Amiri Baraka.

PoemTalk on Aldon Nielson

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-21 | Join us for a PoemTalk on Aldon Nielson!

PoemTalk features lively discussions of poetry in the PennSound archive. In this special taping of PoemTalk in front of an audience, PoemTalk host and producer Al Filreis will lead a discussion with Aldon Nielsen, William J. Harris, and Tyrone Williams about poems in Neilsen’s book Tray.

Rob Sheffield: A Conversation and Karaoke Party

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-16 | Rob Sheffield is a senior writer at Rolling Stone, where he has been covering music and pop culture since 1997. (His first issue had Tori Spelling on the cover.) He is the New York Times best-selling author of five books, including 'Love Is A Mix Tape,' 'Talking To Girls About Duran Duran,' 'Turn Around Bright Eyes,' 'On Bowie' and 'Dreaming The Beatles.’

Heled Travel Grant Presentation

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-14 | Heled Travel and Research Grants enable students to travel and conduct research for significant writing prokects. Join us for presentations by this year's winners: Sof Sears (C'23), who studies "death culture" in Paris, and Drew Basile (C'23), who followed the path of Goethe's famous 1786 tour through Italy.

A Reading by Hoa Nguyen

Kelly Writers House 2023-03-01 | Hosted by Laynie Browne

HOA NGUYEN is the author of several books of poetry including Red Juice, Violet Energy Ingots, and A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure. Born in the Mekong Delta and raised and educated in the United States, Hoa lives in Tkaronto with her family. She is a member of She Who Has No Masters, a Vietnamese diasporic collective of cis, trans, and non-binary women and founding mentor of the SWHNM mentorship. In 2019, her body of work was nominated for a Neustadt Prize for Literature, a prestigious international literary award often compared with the Nobel Prize in Literature.

For more information visit https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0223.php#28

José Olivarez: performance and conversation

Kelly Writers House 2023-02-23 | Caroline Rothstein Oral Poetry Program
hosted by: Andrés Gonzalez-Bonillas

José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. His second book, Promises of Gold, is due out in February of 2023. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, Olivarez co-edited the poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. He is the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods. In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.

A Conversation with Joan Retallack

Kelly Writers House 2023-02-21 | Writers House Fellows Program

From New York and Charleston, South Carolina, JOAN RETALLACK is a celebrated poet, critic, biographer, and scholar. She is the author of 8 books of poetry, most recently Procedural Elegies / Western Civ Cont’d, an Artforum Best Book of 2010. Her other books include Memnoir (2004), How to Do Things With Words (1998), Afterrimages (1995), and Circumstantial Evidence (1985). Her honors are vast, including a Pushcart Prize, a Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry, and grants from the Lannan Foundation for poetry and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her critical studies, including The Poethical Wager, emphasize imagination and alterity and are playfully philosophical. She was the director of Language and Thinking Program at Bard College for ten years, and then served as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities, teaching courses related to her interests in experimental traditions of the 20th and 21st centuries, poetics, and the philosophy of language.

For more information visit https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0223.php#21

A Reading by Joan Retallack