March 2010

Monday, 3/1

A reading and discussion with Myung Mi Kim

Whenever We Feel Like It Reading Series

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

Introduced by: Michelle Taransky

Co-sponsored by: Asian American Studies, SASGov and the Talk Poets

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

listen: to an audio recording of this event on the Whenever We Feel Like It PennSound page

The Whenever We Feel Like It Reading Series is put on by Committee of Vigilance members Michelle Taransky and Emily Pettit. The Committee of Vigilance is a subdivision of Sleepy Lemur Quality Enterprises, which is the production division of The Meeteetzee Institute.

Myung Mi Kim is a Professor of English and a core faculty member of the Poetics Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Kim has also served as Distinguished Visiting Poet at St. Mary's College, Moraga, California, and as Visiting Professor at Oberlin College. Kim was awarded The Multicultural Publisher's Exchange Award of Merit for Under Flag (Kelsey Street Press, 1991). She also received a fellowship at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, awards from the Fund for Poetry, a Daesan Foundation Translation Grant, and the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity. Myung Mi Kim is the author of Penury .(Omnidawn, 2009), Commons. (University of California Press, 2002), DURA. (Sun & Moon, 1999), The Bounty. (Chax Press, 1996, 2000), and Under Fl.ag (Kelsey Street Press, 1991, 1998, and 2008). The anthologies in which her work has appeared include American Poets in the 21st century: The New American Poetics, Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women, Premonitions: Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women. and other collections. And, Kim's collaborations include Spelt,. with the poet Susan Gevirtz. A collaboration with the poet, visual artist, and translator, Norma Cole, appeared in big bridge #12.. The composer John Zorn commissioned her to write a bilingual Korean/English text which can be heard on Zorn's New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands. Most recently, she completed a commission from the Friends of the University Libraries, State University of New York at Buffalo, for their annual broadside.

LIVE at the Writers House features Leeway Award Winners

8:00 PM on WXPN

hosted by: Michaela Majoun

produced by: Erin Gautsche

Click here for more information about this event.

Tuesday, 3/2

A reading and discussion with Catie Rosemurgy

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

Introduced by: Greg Djanikian

Co-sponsored by: the Critical Writing Program

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Catie Rosemurgy teaches courses in creative writing and poetry at the College of New Jersey. Her poetry collection, My Favorite Apocalypse, was published by Graywolf Press in 2001. Her second poetry collection, The Stranger Manual, is forthcoming this spring from Graywolf Press as well. Her work has appeared most recently in the anthologies Isn't It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Young American Poets and Poetry 30, a collection of work by American poets in their thirties. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Female Writers and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Wednesday, 3/3

A lunch talk with sportswriter Doug Glanville

12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

co-sponsored by: SEAS

rsvp: to wh@writing.upenn.edu or call (215)746-POEM; SEATS STRICTLY RESERVED

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Doug Glanville, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, played major league baseball for nine seasons (with the Cubs, the Phillies and the Texas Rangers). In the 2003 playoffs he made a clutch contribution by knocking in the game-winning run in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. After the Mitchell Report exposed the drug culture in Major League Baseball, Doug expressed the player perspective in a piece for ESPN.com and ultimately the New York Times. This earned him an opportunity to be an Op-Ed columnist for the Times, eventually spawning his diversely popular "Heading Home" column. "Heading Home" speaks to the culture of sports and how a life in baseball represents the human condition, complete with triumph and setbacks, passion and disillusionment. It has been embraced by a wide swatch of readers and led to his forthcoming book, The Game From Where I Stand, to be published by Times Books. Glanville currently works as a baseball insider for "Power Alley" on MLB Home Plate (Sirius XM Radio) with Seth Everett, Jim Duquette, and Billy Ripken) and as a contributor with Comcast SportsNet Chicago. He also serves on the board of Athletes Against Drugs, the fundraising committee of Chicago's Boundless Readers and as a mentor to high school student athletes and their parents in his "Ask Doug" column for Baseball Factory.

A poetry reading by Laura Jamarillo, Laura Elrick, and Laura Neuman

presented by the Emergency Poetry Series

5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

listen: to the segmented recording at the Emergency Series PennSound Author Page

Emergency addresses North American poetic practice as it is centered around close-knit communities, long-distance mentorships, new media, and chapbook exchange, asking how theoretical stances and aesthetic practices are transmitted among poets at different stages in their careers. The series was launched in 2006 with support from the Kerry Sherin Wright Prize for programming at Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, an award designed to support a project that demonstrates aesthetic capaciousness and literary communitarianism. All readings are held at the Writers House and are available online at PennSound.

Laura Jaramillo is a poet from Queens, living in Brooklyn. She's the author of The Reactionary Poems (Olywa Press) and Civilan Nest (Love Among the Ruins Editions).

Laura Elrick's latest text-based project is a book-length poem, as yet untitled, that explores the relationship between speed (social time) and utterance; translations and affective condensations occur in the tiny caverns between the compulsion toward language and the patrolling of intelligible expressive registers. Previous work includes the video/poem Stalk (part dystopian urban cartography, part spatial-poetic intervention) originally commissioned for the Positions Colloquium in 2008. She has also written two books of poetry—sKincerity (Krupskaya 2003) and Fantasies in Permeable Structures (Factory School 2005)—and has composed a set of audio pieces for doubled-voice that are in part accessible on the online journal textsound.

Laura Neuman is a writer and performing artist based in Philadelphia. Locally, she is a regular performer and recent co-choreographer with Workshop For Potential Movement, and has also worked and studied with members of Green Chair Dance Group, Headlong Dance Theatre and the Pig Iron Theatre Company. Laura studies poetry at Temple University's Masters in Creative Writing Program and at Bard College's Milton Avery School of the Arts.

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM in Room 209: Writers Workshop. For more information, contact Martha Turner at m-turner@verizon.net.

Thursday, 3/4

Theorizing presents Ann Stoler

"Colonial Aphasia: Disabled Histories in France"

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

co-sponsored by: the English Department, the History Department, and Comparative Literature

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Ann Laura Stoler is Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research in New York since 2004. She has worked for some thirty years on colonial governance, racial epistemologies, and the sexual politics of empire. She has been a visiting distinguished professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and at the Ecole Normal Superieur in Paris and is recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation and Social Science Research Council fellowships. Her books include: Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, l870-1979 (Yale 1985), Race and the Education of Desire (Duke 1995), Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power (California 2002), Along the Archival Grain (Princeton 2009), and the edited volumes, Tensions of Empire, with Frederick Cooper (California, 1997), Haunted by Empire (Duke 2006), Imperial Formations, with Carole McGranahan and Peter Perdue (SAR 2007) and Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination (Duke, forthcoming).

Friday, 3/5

Saturday, 3/6

Sunday, 3/7

Monday, 3/8

Tuesday, 3/9

Wednesday, 3/10

Thursday, 3/11

Friday, 3/12

Saturday, 3/13

Sunday, 3/14

Monday, 3/15

A meeting of the Writers House Planning Committee (the "Hub")

5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe

RSVP: to gautsche@writing.upenn.edu

From the time of its founding in 1995-1996, the Kelly Writers House has been run more or less collectively by members of its community. Our original team of intrepid founders — the group of students, faculty, alumni, and staff who wanted to create an independent haven for writers and supporters of contemporary writing in any genre — took for themselves the name "the hub." "Hub" was the generic term given by Penn's Provost, President, and other planners who hoped that something very innovative would be done at 3805 Locust Walk to prove the viability of the idea that students, working with others, could create an extracurricular learning community around common intellectual and creative passions. To this day, the Writers House Planning Committee refers to itself as "the hub" — the core of engaged faculty, student, staff, and alumni volunteers from whom the House's creative energy and vitality radiates. Go here to get a sense of what we do; go here for sound clips and photos from our end-of-year party; go here for a list of campus publications.

Tuesday, 3/16

KWH ART Opening

"Synaptic Mimes: the Private Spectacular"

with Matthew Albanese, Nadja Bournonville, Miguel Cárdenas, Selena Kimball, Mary Mattingly, Ryan Mrozowski, and Patricia Smith

7:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

"Synaptic Mimes: the Private Spectacular" is a seven-artist exhibition revolving around themes of spectatorship toward mental or private images. Artists include Matthew Albanese, Nadja Bournonville, Miguel Cárdenas, Selena Kimball, Mary Mattingly, Ryan Mrozowski, and Patricia Smith. There will be a limited edition of complimentary catalogues available at this event.

Matthew Albanese, born 1983, earned his BFA with a concentration in photography from Purchase College. His work has been exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Leslie/Lohman Foundation NY. His work has been published online by Humble Arts, and National Geographic. He currently works as freelance photographer in the NYC area.

Nadja Bournonville, born 1983 in Vimmerby, Sweden, studied Fine Art Photography at The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. She graduated in 2006, and has since then lived and worked in Leipzig, Germany. Bournonville is represented by Pierogi Gallery in New York and is a member of the artist-run collective Plats.

Miguel Cárdenas grew up in Colombia and France. He graduated from the painting department of the Rhode Island School of Art and Design in 1996. In 2005 he completed his master's degree in Visual Arts at Columbia University and received the Agnes Martin award for excellence in painting. He currently teaches painting at Columbia University's Visual Arts Department where he has been an adjunct faculty member since 2006. Miguel has exhibited in Latin America, Europe and the United States, and his work is in the permanent collection of the Banco de la República museum in Bogotá. He currently lives and works in New York City.

Selena Kimball is an artist living and working in Brooklyn New York. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Hunter College. Kimball works with collage, film, painting and photography. Filtering historical past through subjective present, she examines the images that have shaped collective memory. Her work can be seen in the collage novel The Sleeping Life of Leonora de La Cruz, Agnieszka Taborska and Selena Kimball (Gdansk: slowo/obraz teryrtoria, 2004, New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2007, Paris: Édition Interférences, 2007). She has exhibited in the US at AIR gallery, 3rd Ward, The Soap Factory, and internationally at the Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, and Yautepec Gallery in Mexico City.

Mary Mattingly is an artist working in New York City. She holds degrees from Parsons School of Design, Yale School of Art, and Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Mattingly has co-curated events alongside the Venice Biennale and Istanbul Biennial in 2005. In 2006, her work headlined Ecotopia, the International Center of Photography's Triennial. Recently, she completed exhibitions at White Box, the New York Public Library, Exit Art, Palais de Tokyo, Tucson Museum of Art, and Neuberger Museum. During the summer of 2009, she completed Waterpod: an autonomous habitat and public space on a flotilla used as a test site to develop housing for citizens threatened by rising sea levels and lack of land-based infrastructure. It docked in NYC's five boroughs, hosting over 22,000 visitors.

Ryan Mrozowski is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in 1981 in western Pennsylvania where he studied art before moving to New York, receiving an MFA from Pratt Institute in 2005. He has exhibited his paintings internationally and will be having a solo exhibition of his work at Pierogi in Brooklyn, NY in late April 2010.

Patricia Smith received her MFA from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Art in 1984. She has had solo exhibitions at Front Room Gallery, Black + Herron Gallery, Saint Peters Church, and Piezo Electric Gallery in New York City; In Situ Gallery in Aalst, Belgium; Croxhapox Gallery in Gent, Belgium; and S.O.M.A. Gallery in Berlin, Germany, in addition to numerous group exhibitions at galleries in the US and abroad. Smith's exhibitions have been reviewed in various publications, including Art in America, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), and New York Magazine, among others. Smith lives and works in New York City and upstate New York.

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes Meeting. For more information, contact Pat Green: patricia78@aol.com.

Wednesday, 3/17

Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes!

8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Speakeasy is an open mic night held at the Kelly Writers House every other Wednesday evening. It's an opportunity for writers to share their work, or the work of others, in a friendly setting. Speakeasy was founded in 1997 and continues to be an important part of the regular Writers House programming series. We welcome poets, storytellers, singers, musicians, and anything in between to share their voices with us in the Arts Cafe twice a month. As always: Poetry, prose, anything goes!

Meetings and classes (may require registration or permission; email for more info)

Lacanians Meeting. Contact Patricia Gherovici at pgherovici@aol.com
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM in Room 209: Writers Workshop. For more information, contact Martha Turner at m-turner@verizon.net.

Thursday, 3/18

Alicia Sams and Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve

a conversation about film

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

co-sponsored by: Cinema Studies

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Alicia Sams has extensive production experience in both documentary and feature films. Her most recent film as director/producer is By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, a behind-the-scenes look at the journey of Barack Obama and his campaign staff from before the announcement of his Presidential campaign in 2007, all the way to the White House in 2009. By the People premiered on HBO on November 3, 2009. Also in 2009, Sams was executive producer of Cherien Dabis' award-winning debut feature Amreeka, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and win on to win the Critics Prize at the Director's Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festical. It was released in September 2009 by National Geographic Films. Sams was producer of Toots, about the legendary saloonkeeper at the heart of New York's political, sports, and journalism scene in the '40s, '50s and '60s, which was released theatrically in September 2007. In 2006, she produced Wanderlust, a feature-length documentary about road movies and the road in American culture directed by the Academy-Award nominated team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, which aired on IFC in May 2006, and was also consulting producer of Buddy, about Buddy Cianci, the notorious (and felonious) mayor of Providence. Prior to that, she produced the Sony Pictures Classics' release Grateful Dawg, the Sundance Channel series Keeping Time: New Music from America's Roots, the independent documentary Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's, and the AMC television special Hello He Lied, and Other Truths from the Hollywood Trenches, Tennessee Williams: Orpheys of the American Stage, among others. She was post-production supervisor for Chocolat, The Shipping News, and The Original Kings of Comedy and co-produced Nelson Hume's debut feature Sunburn. She began her career working on documentaries for Bill Moyers Public Affairs Television, TBS, and the PBS series American Masters, Great Performances and Workds and Process.

Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve has developed – and in many cases, written story ideas and treatments for – projects at many major studios, cable stations and networks over the past fifteen years. She co-wrote Fugly (under option to Universal) with John Leguizamo, and has produced numerous feature and cable films, including Undefeated (2003), Pinero (2001), and Joe the King (1999), which won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Kathy has written three novels: Cranberry Queen (2001, Miramax), a Book Sense 2001 pick and originally optioned by Miramax Films; The Difference Between You and Me (2004, Miramax); and Drizzle, her first young-adult book, to be published by Dial Books for Young Readers in March 2010. Kathy took her B.S. and B.A. (Creative Writing) from Penn in 1988—a dual degree from the Wharton School and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Friday, 3/19

Saturday, 3/20

Sunday, 3/21

A workshop reading of Lee Huttner's prize-winning play A Faustplay

6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe

For the sixth year in a row, the Front Row Theatre Company and the Kelly Writers House have sponsored a playwriting fellowship. Please join us for a public reading and discussion of the winning play, to help prepare the work for a capstone staged reading. More information is available at www.frontrowtheatreco.com.

Monday, 3/22

A reading by Susan Howe

Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe

rsvp: SEATING STRICTLY LIMITED; please RSVP to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-573-9749

listen: to an audio recording of this event on PennSound

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Funded by a grant from Paul Kelly, the Kelly Writers House Fellows program enables us to realize two unusual goals. We want to make it possible for the youngest writers and writer-critics to have sustained contact with authors of great accomplishment in an informal atmosphere. We also want to resist the time-honored distinction — more honored in practice than in theory — between working with eminent writers on the one hand and studying literature on the other.

Susan Howe has defied pat definitions of contemporary avant-garde poetry and has created a diverse body work in varied media and across many disciplines. Her critical work includes the book My Emily Dickinson, which has been called "one of our seminal works of creative scholarship" by the poet Michael Palmer. Ms. Howe has been active as an actress, a painter, and a radio producer, and has collaborated with experimental musician David Grubbs on a series of interdisciplinary projects including two audio compilations - Thiefth and Songs of the Labadie Tract.

Ms. Howe has received two American Book Awards and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. In 1996 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1998 she was a distinguished fellow at the Stanford Institute of the Humanities. She was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000.

Ms. Howe is author of many books of poetry, including Europe of Trusts: Selected Poems, Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979 and The Midnight. Her work has appeared in the anthologies The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry and In the American Tree.

On Howe's performance of her own writing, the poet Maureen Owen observes: "Listening to her read is like staring into a lake enchanted mesmerized drawn closer and closer until the tip of the nose touches water & then swiftly one senses danger danger a warning a voice saying No, no wrong way not the lake not the lake over here & yes she's over there now & the magnetic pull begins again."

Tuesday, 3/23

A brunch conversation with Susan Howe

Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

10:00 AM in the Arts Cafe

rsvp: SEATING STRICTLY LIMITED; please RSVP to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-573-9749

listen: to an audio recording of this event on PennSound

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Wednesday, 3/24

Comics

with Alli Katz and Chris Stevens

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Join us for an evening with Alli Katz and Chris Stevens as they read and discuss their work, and Philadelphia's place in the comic scene. We hope you will join us!

Alli Katz is a freelance writer, cartoonist, etch-a-sketcher and teacher of all things fun. She is sort of from Long Island, definitely from Chicago, and currently lives in West Philly.

Chris Stevens is a rising voice in the world of graphic fiction. His first published work was the lead story in the Eisner Award-nominated anthology Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened from Random House (2007). His current projects, set to appear in 2011, include the collection of short stories Dream Compass, illustrated by some of the finest creators in comics including Arthur Adams, Farel Dalrymple, Jae Lee, James Jean, David Mack, and Nate Powell, and the all-ages Ong Jungle Jane with illustrator Stephen Gilpin. Stevens grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey and currently resides in West Philadelphia with his wife and two cats.

Thursday, 3/25

RealArts@Penn Presents: a lunch conversation with Nate Chinen

12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Anthony DeCurtis

rsvp: to wh@writing.upenn.edu or call (215)746-POEM

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Nate Chinen (C'97) has been has been writing about jazz and pop for the New York Times since 2005. He has received multiple honors from the Jazz Journalists Association, including an award for Best Book About Jazz, for Myself Among Others: A Life in Music (2003), which he wrote with the impresario George Wein. Since 2004 he has been a columnist for JazzTimes. Look here for an explanation of his blog, The Gig.

As an undergraduate at Penn, Nate was deeply involved with the Kelly Writers House, serving as Assistant Coordinator from 1997-98.

"Cross-Pollination: Integrating the Arts"

with Ricardo Zapata, Liz Moore, Jeffrey Stockbridge, and Laura Shay

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

Visual artist Ricardo Zapata, writer Liz Moore, photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge, and musician Laura Shay participate in a moderated panel discussion about their creative processes, their sources of inspiration, and their thoughts on collaboration with other artists. How can we draw inspiration from unexpected places? How can one art inform another? Q+A to follow.

Ricardo Zapata is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in the multicultural melting pot of Miami. He graduated from the New World School of the Arts and then attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2007, Ricardo graduated with honors from the Maryland Institute College of Art earning a BFA degree consisting of a major in painting and a minor in art history. He recently earned his MFA degree with a concentration in painting and a certificate in graphic design from the University of Pennsylvania. His recent work incorporates multi-media large scale installation and two-dimensional works investigating the history of activism and the desire for transgression. Ricardo lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Liz Moore wrote most of her first novel, The Words of Every Song (Broadway, 2007), while an undergrad at Barnard College. The book, which centers on a fictional record company in New York City, draws partly on Liz's own experiences as a musician (Liz released her first album Backyards in 2007 as well). Liz obtained her MFA in Fiction from Hunter College, where she studied with Peter Carey, Colum McCann, and Nathan Englander. In the fall she'll be teaching Creative Writing and Composition at Holy Family University in Philadelphia. She still performs regularly, and is currently in what she hopes is the final stretch of her second novel. You can find her on the web at myspace.com/lizmooremusic.

Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jeffrey Stockbridge is a photographer who explores subject matter pertaining to the urban environment. His recent work has focused on subjects such as dilapidated neighborhoods, abandoned houses, drugs, and prostitution. Jeffrey's work has been exhibited at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, The Delaware Art Museum, The Woodmere Art Museum and J. Cacciola Gallery. Jeffrey is a recent recipient of a 2009 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant, an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts Grant and The Center For Emerging Visual Artists Fellowship. Jeffrey is currently completing a new series and is scheduled to have a solo show at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in 2010.

Laura Shay is a Philadelphia-based musician and songwriter. Her albums include To a Place (2005), Bittersweet (2008), and Blue Light Sessions (2010). Shay has also earned a BA and MA from West Chester University in Communication Studies, and is currently working on a Master's Degree in Speech-Language Pathology while working full time. Find her on the Web at www.laurashay.com.

Friday, 3/26

Saturday, 3/27

Poetry reading featuring Srikanth Reddy and Daniel Khalastchi with Kaegan Sparks

presented by the Whenever We Feel Like It series

4:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

Listen: to an audio recording of this event

Watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

The Whenever We Feel Like It reading series is put on by Committee of Vigilance members Michelle Taransky and Emily Pettit. The Committee of Vigilance is a subdivision of Sleepy Lemur Quality Enterprises, which is the production division of The Meeteetzee Institute.

Srikanth Reddy's first collection, Facts for Visitors, received the Asian American Literary Award for Poetry in 2005. His second book, Voyager, is forthcoming from the University of California Press in 2011. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the doctoral program in English at Harvard University, Reddy is currently an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.

Daniel Khalastchi is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems have appeared/are forthcoming in a variety of journals, including Denver Quarterly; jubilat; 1913; Forklift, Ohio; Ninth Letter; GutCult; and Thermos, among others. A recent fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Daniel is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Marquette University. His first collection of poetry, The Maturation of Man, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press.

Kaegan Sparks is a senior in the college. She curates KWH Art at the Writers House and works with the Common Press at Penn. Kaegan has held internships over the past two summers at ICA Philadelphia, Dia:Beacon, Parkett Publishers, and The Kitchen in New York City. She studies contemporary poetry at Penn, and writes poems on occasion. She is currently working on a hybrid creative-critical piece on the intricacies of dialogue forms in poetry.

Sunday, 3/28

Monday, 3/29

A lunch talk with Jo Piazza

12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Dick Polman

Listen: to an audio recording of this event

Watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-746-POEM

Jo Piazza graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a degree in economics and communications. While at Penn she was a beat reporter for the Daily Pennsylvanian and an editor for 34th Street. Jo interned at the New York Times in their Trenton Bureau during her senior year at Penn before continuing on to pursue a Masters degree in Journalism at Columbia University. She began working at the New York Daily News as an assistant to gossip columnists George Rush and Joanna Molloy in 2003 and eventually graduated to features reporter and columnist. After leaving the paper in 2008 Jo began pursuing writing opportunities online and has been writing for CNN, Fox News, AOL, Slate and The Daily Beast as well as appearing as a frequent guest on CNN, Fox and MSNBC. She is currently working on her first book, a case study about the intersection of celebrity and finance, to be published in fall 2010.

LIVE at the Writers House features Mighty Writers!

featuring Imani Kunle, Adoniyah Ben T'om, Raeese Nasir, Anthony Oliver, Tiaira Rodgers, Naur Collins, and musical guest Nicole Reynolds

7:00 PM in the Arts Cafe; airs April 5 at 8:00 PM on 88.5 WXPN

hosted by: Michaela Majoun

produced by: Erin Gautsche

Mighty Writers is a Philadelphia nonprofit designed to awaken school-age city kids to the wonders of writing. Thier plan is to open free-to-all storefront writing centers in the city's neighborhoods, connecting city students with emerging and established writers and developing confidence and self-expression through one-on-one tutoring in fun and dynamic neighborhood spaces.

Mighty Writers believe that success is best achieved with clarity of thought—and there is no better route to success than being able to express oneself through words. All-volunteer tutors work with enrolled students in one-to-one and in collaborative settings. Short and long term goals are defined, special projects planned and bonds formed.

Imani Kunle (7th grade; Agora Cyber Charter School) When Imani is not at Mighty Writers, he enjoys scoring mighty goals while playing soccer.

Adoniyah Ben T'om (7th grade; Agora Cyber Charter School) Adoniyah's favorite pastime is playing video games, especially Grand Theft Auto 5. He always wins!

Raeese Nasir (6th grade; McCall Elementary School) In his free time, Raeese is quite athletic and excels at playing both football and basketball.

Anthony Oliver (7th grade; People for People Charter School) Like most teenage boys, Anthony loves playing video games, but when he feels the need to get outside he loves to break out the skateboard. If Tony is bored of video games on a rainy day, you can probably find him drawing.

Tiaira Rodgers (8th; W.G. Smith School) Tiaira enjoys watching TV, surfing the Internet, and listening to music. When she's feeling active, she loves shooting baskets!

Naur Collins (8th grade; World Communication Charter School) Naur excels at playing sports, especially football. When he is stuck inside he also loves to play video games.

Performing songwriter, Nicole Reynolds was born into a family of Pittsburgh steelworkers. She was strongly influenced by old folk and jazz and brings her social conscience to her songs that are also fused with blues traditions. Nicole has earned herself a deserved reputation for smart lyrics and subtly tackling big topics. Her latest album, and her fourth full release, is titled A Fine Set of Fools.

LIVE at the Writers House is a long-standing collaboration between the Kelly Writers House and WXPN FM (88.5). Six times annually between September and April, Michaela Majoun hosts a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, along with one musical guest, all from our Arts Cafe onto the airwaves at WXPN. LIVE is made possible by generous support from BigRoc. For more information, contact Producer Erin Gautsche (gautsche@writing.upenn.edu).

Tuesday, 3/30

A reading by Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve

celebrating the publication of Drizzle

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

Kathleen Van Cleve grew up on a blueberry and cranberry farm in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, an environment so mystical and so specific that it imbues most of her fiction. Her debut adult novel, Cranberry Queen (Miramax Books, 2001, written under her maiden name, Kathleen DeMarco), depicted a 33 year-old woman getting lost in the Pine Barrens during the annual cranberry harvest. She contributed an essay entitled "The Family Farm" to the collection, Living On the Edge of the World: NJ Writers Take On the Garden State (Touchstone Books, 2007). And now, in her first novel for children, Drizzle, Van Cleve sets her story on a magical farm where diamonds sprout from the ground, chocolate rhubarb flourishes, and it rains every Monday at one o'clock. Drizzle was recently chosen to be one of Indiebound's titles on the Spring 2010 Kids Indie Next List.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 with a B.A. from the College of Arts & Science and a B.S. from the Wharton School of Business, Van Cleve worked as an international commodities trader for four years before heading to Cambridge to take writing courses at Harvard Extension School. She then moved to New York City, where she began a career as a film producer, working first at Dan Wigutow Productions and then with the actor/comedian, John Leguizamo, as his producing partner. She produced the feature films Joe The King (Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival), Pinero, Sexaholic, Undefeated, and The Babysitters. Van Cleve used her experience in the film business as the basis for her second adult novel The Difference Between You and Me (Miramax Books, 2003, also written under her maiden name, Kathleen DeMarco).

Foreign rights to Cranberry Queen, a Booksense 2001 pick, and The Difference were sold to over eight countries, including the U.K., Holland, Germany, Japan, Hungary and Poland. Miramax Films also optioned Cranberry Queen for a feature film adaptation.

Since 2006, Van Cleve has been a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in their English and Cinema Studies programs, teaching screenwriting to undergraduate students. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two young sons.

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes Meeting. For more information, contact Pat Green: patricia78@aol.com.

Wednesday, 3/31

Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes!

8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

listen: to an audio recording of this event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM in Room 209: Writers Workshop. For more information, contact Martha Turner at m-turner@verizon.net.