Alumni Weekend
May 18, 2024: THE PARENT-ARTIST: A PANEL DISCUSSION
- watch: a video recording of this event via our Youtube channel
- watch: a video recording of this event via our Youtube channel
- watch: a video recording of this event via our Youtube channel
- listen: to an audio recording of this program
- watch: a video recording of this program via KWH-TV
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
- listen to an audio recording of this event
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
- listen: to an audio recording of this event
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
- listen: to an audio recording of this event
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
- listen: to an audio recording of this event
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.
- listen: to an audio recording of this event.
- watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
- listen: to an audio recording of this event
- listen to an audio recording of this program
- watch a
video recording of this program via KWH-TV
Please join us for a panel of parent writers, artists, and musicians. Moderated by Catherine Ricketts (C'09), author of the forthcoming The Mother Artist, the panel will explore questions about what it takes to create while taking on the many joys – and obligations – of care. Panelists include Nate Chinen (C'97), Lauren Francis-Sharma (C'94), Natalie Eve Garrett (MFA'04), Aimee Koran (MFA'17), and Joseph Earl Thomas (G'24).
Nate Chinen (C'97) is the author of Playing Changes: Jazz For the New Century. He served as the first assistant coordinator at the Kelly Writers House, before becoming a columnist for JazzTimes and a music critic for The New York Times. Nate is now editorial director at WRTI, a regular contributor to NPR, and proprietor of The Gig, a Substack publication. A thirteen-time winner of the Helen Dance–Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing, he is also coauthor of George Wein's Myself Among Others: A Life in Music.
Lauren Francis-Sharma (C'94) is the author of Book of the Little Axe, the 2020 ALA “Libraries Transform Book Pick” and a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction. Her first novel, Til the Well Runs Dry was awarded the Honor Fiction Prize by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and short-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Lauren is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan Law School, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her next novel, Casualties of Truth, based on her time at the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa, will be published by Grove/Atlantic in February. Lauren is a book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle and a MacDowell Fellow. She serves on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College.
Natalie Eve Garrett (MFA'04) is an artist and a writer. She's the editor of The Lonely Stories, a cathartic collection of personal essays from 22 celebrated writers about the joys and struggles of being alone, out now from Catapult. She's also the editor of Eat Joy (Catapult, 2019), a collection of stories exploring how food can help us cope in dark times, and The Artists' and Writers Cookbook (pH Books, 2016), a collection of stories with recipes. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, Natalie lives with her husband, two children, and their puppy, Zephyr, in a little town near DC, along the Potomac River.
Aimee Koran (MFA'17) is a multi-disciplinary artist based out of Philadelphia, PA. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts with a minor in textile design from Moore College of Art & Design. Aimee explores the topic of motherhood focusing on the continuously shifting and complex binaries that shape the role. Her work has been shown around the globe in venues such as the Richard Saulton Gallery, London, UK; Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, PA; The Arlington Art Center, Arlington, VA; and completed residencies at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA; The Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; and Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ. Her solo and group exhibitions have been featured in publications like The New York Times, Vogue, Whitewall, Artslant, Artnet News, and A Woman's Thing. Aimee's work was recently acquired for addition to the permanent contemporary collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Catherine Ricketts (C'09) writes about the arts, grief, joy, and spirituality. She studied writing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MFA in nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University. Her essays have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, The Christian Century, Image, The Millions, Paste, and the Ploughshares blog, among other publications. While writing, she has supported the work of other practicing artists as a live arts presenter, having held jobs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia's FringeArts, and the public radio station WXPN. Ricketts lives with her family near Philadelphia and works in the Villanova University Honors Program. Find her on Instagram at @bycatherinericketts.
Joseph Earl Thomas (G'24) is the author of Sink, a memoir, the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer forthcoming next month, and the story collection Leviathan Beach (Grand Central, 2025). His prose, poetry and criticism has been published in The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Dilettante Army, and he New York Times Book Review. Sink was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame's MFA program in prose, he is earning a PhD in English at The University of Pennsylvania. He will be teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College in the Fall, and also teaches courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Queer Theory, Video Games and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
May 13, 2023: A CELEBRATION OF ANTHONY DECURTIS
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, including harm reductionist Grace Ambrose (C'11), writer/performer Cecilia Corrigan (C'11), YA novelist Jessica Goodman (C'12), journalist and editor Alex Koppelman (C'05), Philadelphia-based writer and yoga teacher Gwen Lewis (C'14), Philly Improv Theater founder Greg Maughman (C'05), reporter Joe Pinsker (C'13), and Vox editorial director of culture and features Julia Rubin (C'10). Emceed by Ali Jaffe Ramis (C'14), a segment producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Hillary Reinsberg (C'11), editor of The Infatuation and Zagat. 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 Maughan (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.
May 14, 2022: A Conversation About Podcasts
What goes into making a podcast? How does podcasting differ from other kinds of media production? What stories are best told through the podcasting form, and how has podcasting shaped how we tell stories? Join us to hear from Penn alumni who have worked on podcasts in all phases. Hosted by Jamie-Lee Josselyn (C’05), featured panelists will include Nate Chinen (C’97), co-host of Jazz United, which the Jazz Journalists Association recently recognized as Podcast of the Year; Taylor Hosking (C'17), a freelance podcast producer who has produced podcasts for Netflix and HBO; Naomi Shavin (C'14), senior producer for narrative and development of podcasts at Axios; and Yowei Shaw (C'10), co-host and editorial lead of NPR's Invisibilia.
Nate Chinen(C’97) is the author of Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, and a charter member of the Hub at the Kelly Writers House. A former critic for The New York Times and former columnist at JazzTimes, he's a regular contributor to NPR and editorial director at WBGO — where he co-hosts Jazz United, which the Jazz Journalists Association recently recognized as Podcast of the Year.
Taylor Hosking (C’17) is a freelance podcast producer and writer based in New York City. At Penn, she and Stephanie Hodges started the first culture podcast for the Daily Pennsylvanian called ‘In the Cut’ geared toward minorities and creatives on campus. She spent her first two years after Penn writing articles at the intersection of culture and politics at The Atlantic and VICE before getting back into podcasting as a producer and host. Working at Pineapple Street Studios in New York, she’s produced podcasts for Netflix and HBO, including an original podcast idea for the HBO show “Insecure.” And as a freelancer she’s reported and hosted audio stories on The New Yorker Radio Hour, WNYC, and KCRW.
Naomi Shavin (C'14) was the founding member and is currently the senior producer for narrative a nd development on Axios's audio team. Before moving into podcasting, she was an editor at Axios and at Vox and worked for magazines including The New Yorker, The New Republic, Smithsonian Magazine and Forbes.
Yowei Shaw (C'10) is the co-host and editorial lead of NPR's Invisibilia, where she reports, produces, and sound designs stories. Her work has also been featured in places like This American Life, and has been honored with several awards, including a Third Coast Documentary Award. She's also the daughter of Taiwanese-American immigrants and a member of multiple friend crews, and once upon a time, she made really good elevator music in Chinatown, Philadelphia.
Jamie-Lee Josselyn (C'05) is an instructor & Associate Director in the Creative Writing Program at Penn. Her writing has been published in The New Republic, Literary Hub, Cleaver Magazine, and elsewhere. She hosts a literary podcast series about writing about the death of a parent called Dead Parents Society.
May 15, 2021: SANAË LEMOINE, ARIEL RESNIKOFF, AND COURTNEY ZOFFNESS
In honor of alumni weekend, join us on Zoom for a celebration of three alumni authors who have recently published their first books: Sanaë Lemoine (C’11), author of the novel The Margot Affair (Hogarth/Crown, 2020), Ariel Resnikoff (GR'19), author of the poetry collection Unnatural Bird Migrator (Operating System, 2020), and Courtney Zoffness, (C'00) author of the essay collection Spilt Milk (McSweeney's, 2021). After short readings by each author, we'll have an open conversation about publishing today: How does an idea become a book? How does publishing change during a pandemic? And how do you connect with readers when you can't gather in person? Register here.
Sanaë Lemoine was born in Paris to a Japanese mother and a French father. She was raised in France and Australia, and now lives in New York. She attended the University of Pennsylvania and received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University. The Margot Affair is her first novel.
Ariel Resnikoff is the author of Unnatural Bird Migrator (Operating System 2020) and the chapbooks Ten-Four: Poems, Translations, Variations (Operating System 2015), with Jerome Rothenberg, and Between Shades (Materialist Press 2014). With Stephen Ross, he is at work on the first critical bilingual edition of Mikhl Likht’s modernist Yiddish long poem, Processions, and with Lilach Lachman and Gabriel Levin, he is translating into English the collected writings of the translingual-Hebrew poet, Avot Yeshurun. Ariel has taught courses on multilingual diasporic literatures at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (UPenn) and at BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change. In 2019, he completed his PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is currently a Fulbright Postdoctoral US Scholar.
Courtney Zoffness writes fiction and nonfiction. She won the Sunday Times Short Story Award, a Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellowship, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, and residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, the New York Times, The Southern Review, Guernica, Longreads, and elsewhere, and she had "notable" Best American Essays in 2018 and 2019. Her debut, Spilt Milk (McSweeney's, 2021), was named a Most Anticipated Book of the year by LitHub, The Millions, Refinery29, and other outlets. Courtney directs the creative writing program at Drew University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
May 16, 2020: SO YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE FOR FILM AND TV
This participatory workshop led by award-winning screenwriter and director Andy Wolk is for people who have stories or ideas they want to tell for TV or film. Participants will learn about story development, structure, and character along with how to pitch your big idea and how to sell it. Andy Wolk (C’70) has written features for HBO, Showtime, FX and every major studio, and has directed many movies and shows including The Sopranos, Criminal Minds, and Gossip Girl.
May 18, 2019: COVERING TECH IN THE DIGITAL AGE: Mike Murphy, Arielle Pardes, and Albert Sun
How does technology shape the work of reporting? What tech trends matter right now? Is the press doing enough to hold tech giants accountable? Hosted by Penn Creative Writing instructor Sam Apple (contributor to WIRED and MIT Tech Review), three alumni journalists will tackle these topics and more, discussing the role of journalists in covering technology and the ways technology is changing the field. Panelists include Mike Murphy (C’09) a deputy editor at Quartz, Arielle Pardes (C’14), a senior associate editor for WIRED magazine, and Albert Sun (C’10), an assistant editor at The New York Times.
Mike Murphy is a deputy editor at Quartz, covering technology. He focuses on "machines with brains" and consumer electronics. He likes to write about the future and the products that will get us there. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to journalism, Murphy worked in advertising and technology marketing. He lives in Brooklyn.
Arielle Pardes (C ’14) is a senior associate editor for Wired Magazine. Her work explores the intersection of technology and society, including investigations into the rise of IRL spaces made for Instagram, Silicon Valley’s backlash against personal technology, and the racial identity of robots. Previously, she was a senior editor for VICE in Los Angeles. She now lives in San Francisco.
Albert Sun is an Assistant Editor at The New York Times on a team charged with guiding the overall presentation of The New York Times across all platforms and internal newsroom workflow and tools. He leads product development efforts for the Times's publishing on languages other than English and digital archiving. Previously, he worked on the Morning Briefing and as a data journalist and engineer, covering health and science and building news apps.
May 12, 2018: ALUMNI AUTHORS FICTION READING: Ariel Djanikian, Amina Gautier, Melissa Jensen
Ariel Djanikian's stories have recently appeared in Tin House, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Glimmer Train. Her nonfiction can be found at The Millions, The Rumpus, The Kenyon Review Online, and The Paris Review Daily. Her first novel, The Office of Mercy, was published with Viking, and she is currently at work on a historical novel about the Klondike Gold Rush. She lives in Maryland with her family.
Dr. Amina Gautier is the author of three short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy and The Loss of All Lost Things. At-Risk was awarded the Flannery O’Connor Award, The First Horizon Award, and the Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction Award. Now We Will Be Happy was awarded the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, the International Latino Book Award, the Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Award, a National Silver Medal IPPY Award and was a Finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize. The Loss of All Lost Things was awarded the Elixir Press Award in Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award, the Royal Palm Literary Award, the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award, a National Silver Medal IPPY Award, was shortlisted for the SFC Literary Prize, and was a Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award, the Paterson Prize and the John Gardner Award. More than ninety-five of her stories have been published, appearing in African American Review, Agni, Callaloo, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Oxford American, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Quarterly West. Gautier has received fellowships, residencies, and scholarships from Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, The Carmago Foundation, The Château de Lavigny, Dora Maar/Brown Foundation, Disquiet International, Hawthornden, Kimbilio, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, MacDowell Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Ucross Foundation, VCCA, and Vermont Studio Center.
Melissa Jensen is an award-winning writer of historical and contemporary fiction. Most recently, her Young Adult novels have been official selections on such lists as New York Public Library's Teen Reading and FYA. She is currently working on the fourth and final book in her Philadelphia novel series and a play centered around bog bodies and Irish rap music, as well as participating in an ongoing San Francisco-based multi-media project exploring the connection between anthropology, archaeology, and literature. “Broken Siren”, a contemporary work for string ensemble and soprano based on Homer’s Odyssey, for which she wrote the libretto, will debut in 2018, followed by Carmilla from the Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu novella in 2020. She has contributed to numerous print media, including Philadelphia Style Magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She currently divides her time between Philadelphia and Dublin, all the better to be immersed in the worlds of really really good fiction and poetry, and fascinating stuff unearthed from underground.
May 13, 2017: FOOD AND FOOD WRITING IN PHILADELPHIA: Drew Lazor, Trey Popp, and Ellen Yin, with Rick Nichols
We held a panel discussion of food and food writing with a special focus on the ever-growing culinary culture of Philadelphia. Led by Creative Writing faculty member and local luminary Rick Nichols — there’s an eating-and-meeting space in Reading Terminal Market named in Rick’s honor — our conversation explored culinary creativity, the restaurant industry, and approaches to writing about food. A delicious reception, open to all, followed.
A local contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, Drew Lazor has also written for Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Food Network, Lucky Peach, Saveur, Serious Eats, Vice and PUNCH, where he rambles regularly about drinking games and other boozy topics. He's the co-author of New German Cooking, published by Chronicle Books in January 2015. Check out more of his work at drewlazor.com and say hi on Instagram and Twitter (@drewlazor).
As a food critic for Philadelphia City Paper (2006-2010) and Philadelphia magazine (2010-2015), Trey Popp wrote more than 300 restaurant reviews and won a Keystone Award for best feature beat reporting. His work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Outside, Slate, and other publications. Since 2007 he has been an editor at the Pennsylvania Gazette, Penn’s alumni magazine.
Ellen Yin is the founder and co-owner of High Street Hospitality Group (HSHG), which operates three of the most noteworthy restaurants and bars in Philadelphia: Fork, at the top of Philadelphia’s must-visit list for nearly 20 years; High Street on Market, a much-lauded breakfast-through-late-night, ingredient-driven restaurant and bakery; and a.kitchen + a.bar at the AKA Rittenhouse Square, a dynamic and popular restaurant and bar frequently honored for their exceptional cooking and wine program. At the end of 2015, HSHG debuted their first outpost outside of Philadelphia, High Street on Hudson, in Manhattan’s West Village. Yin is also the author of Forklore: Recipes and Tales from an American Bistro (Temple University Press, 2007), a thoughtful chronicle of her ongoing success at creating and maintaining a definitive American bistro in Philadelphia’s historic Old City. She is a graduate of the Wharton School.
May 14, 2016: OPEN HOUSE (20 YEARS!)
The Kelly Writers House is 20 years old! We had a casual celebration of this lively and innovative home for writers and creative people, with plenty of food, KWH alumni and friends, and opportunities to reminisce. We opened up the Wexler Recording Studio, so that you could record your own memories in honor of our 20th year. We loved hearing from you as you renewed acquaintances or got to know this home for writers by joining members of the Writers House community for informal conversation and coffee.
May 14, 2016: 20 STORIES ABOUT 20 YEARS AT KWH
To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we invited 20 people to speak about the history and impact of the Kelly Writers House and its community. Our program featured former program coordinators and directors, Penn alumni and friends, and 20 people from throughout the history of KWH who shared their stories. During the reception that followed, we opened up the Wexler Recording Studio, so that you too could record your memories in honor of our 20th year.
May 15, 2015: SO YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY: Andy Wolk (C'70)
How many times have you been to the movies and thought, "I could do that"? Have you ever thought, "I have a movie in me I want to see on the big screen"? Well, this participatory Kelly Writers House workshop helped to launch you into the movies. Or at least learning about them. We dealt with how you can come to grips with developing a screen story, structuring it, writing it, and hopefully selling it.
Andy Wolk’s writing/directing career began with the much-lauded HBO movie Criminal Justice starring Forest Whitaker that made Time Magazine’s “Ten Best” List. Mr. Wolk has been nominated 3 times for the Writers Guild Award and won it once for Natica Jackson starring Michelle Pfeiffer. He has been nominated for the Director's Guild Award several times and has directed numerous episodes of shows such as The Sopranos, Damages,NYPD Blue, Criminal Minds, Without A Trace and The Practice. He has been writer and director on many legal-themed movies including Deliberate Intent, the critically praised 1st movie ever for FX starring Timothy Hutton and (with his brother Peter, also a Penn grad) the acclaimed Fighting The Odds for Lifetime, The Defenders: Payback, Choice of Evils and Taking The First for Showtime. Mr. Wolk’s other writing credits include HBO’s Emmy-winning From The Earth to The Moon and the award-winning Tales from The Crypt starring Demi Moore. He has written features for Miramax, Paramount,Tri-Star, UA, MGM, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, and AVCO Embassy plus pilots for Fox, ABC, and Showtime.
May 17, 2014: Greg Djanikian and Matt Chylak
Born in Alexandria, Egypt of Armenian parentage, Gregory Djanikian came to the United States when he was 8 years old and spent his boyhood in Williamsport, PA. He is a graduate of the Syracuse University writing program and is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania where he was an undergraduate. He is the author of six collections of poetry, The Man in the Middle, Falling Deeply into America, About Distance, Years Later, So I Will Till the Ground, and, most recently, Dear Gravity. He has been awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship, two prizes from Poetry magazine (the Eunice Tietjens Prize, and Friends of Literature Prize), the Anahid Literary Award from the Armenian Center at Columbia University, and multiple residencies at Yaddo. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, Boulevard, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies including Best American Poetry, Good Poems, American Places (Viking), Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem (Knopf), Seriously Funny (Georgia), Becoming Americas: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing (Library of America), Poem in Your Pocket (The Academy of American Poets), Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (Norton), 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Random House), among others.
Matthew Chylak is a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned honors in Creative Writing for his poetry collection Selections from 11:37, a series of poems that explore the nature. He currently resides in Center City, working on new poetry projects and writing for his music blog Context Blues
May 11, 2013: Nick Spitzer
Nick Spitzer, the producer and host of American Routes, is a folklorist and a professor of anthropology and American studies at Tulane University. Nick specializes in American music and the cultures of the Gulf South, and received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas in 1986 with his dissertation on zydeco music and Afro-French Louisiana culture and identities.
American Routes, which is distributed by PRX, reaches nearly a million listeners each week on over 268 stations and via its website.
Nick has been a cultural commentator and producer for NPR’s All Things Considered and Fresh Air, CBS’ Sunday Morning, and ABC’s Nightline. He directed the film Zydeco: Creole Music and Culture in Rural Louisiana (1986), and has produced or annotated two dozen documentary sound recordings. In 2002 he co-curated ‘Raised to the Trade’: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is an essayist and co-editor for the book Public Folklore (1992, 2007) and co-author of Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America’s Creole Soul (2006).
Nick’s radio experience goes back to the 1970s, when he served first as program director of WXPN-FM, the college radio station at Penn in Philadelphia, where he majored in anthropology. After graduation, he was afternoon drive host on the popular “underground” rock station WMMR-FM in Philadelphia, and later worked as a deejay on the legendary progressive country station KOKE-FM during the early boom days of the Austin music scene.
His interests include ethnography of the Gulf Coast, cultural creolization, American vernacular music/culture, and public cultural policy. Nick received a Guggenheim fellowship for work on traditional creativity in Louisiana Creole communities.
May 12, 2012: A live taping of Slate Magazine's "Hang Up and Listen" featuring Stefan Fatsis (C'85), Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca
"Hang Up and Listen", Slate's weekly audio sports podcast, combines all the passion, arcane knowledge and armchair quarterbacking of mainstream sports talk shows with an intellectual curiosity that appeals to both rabid sports fans and those who barely pay attention to the Super Bowl. Each 50-minute episode features three panelists: Slate sports editor Josh Levin, and regular NPR sports contributors Stefan Fatsis (C'85) and Mike Pesca. Frequently joined by guests from other publications and broadcast outlets, the hosts cover a wide range of topics including international and mainstream American sports, the business of sports, and less well-known games and teams. To listen to past episodes of Hang Up and Listen, please visit: http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/hang_up_and_listen.html.
Josh Levin is a senior editor at Slate in charge of the sports and technology sections, and the host of "Hang Up and Listen", the magazine's weekly sports podcast featuring Stefan Fatsis and Mike Pesca. He has written more than 200 articles for Slate, and has also contributed to the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, Men's Health, the San Francisco Chronicle, Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine, and the Washington City Paper.
Stefan Fatsis (C'85) is an author, reporter and familiar voice to public-radio listeners nationwide. He has written three books: A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL, the Plimptonian story of his summer as a training-camp placekicker for the Denver Broncos; Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, chronicling the twisted subculture of the quintessentially American board game and the author's descent into it; and Wild and Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America's Heartland, about a troupe of antiestablishment baseball entrepreneurs and their nose-thumbing creation, the Northern League. Fatsis is a panelist on Slate's sports podcast "Hang Up and Listen," and writes regularly for the magazine. He also has written for the New York Times, that paper's (sadly defunct) Play magazine, Sports Illustrated, SI.com, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Deadspin, Kissing Suzy Kolber and other publications.
Mike Pesca first reached the airwaves as a 10-year-old caller to a New York Jets-themed radio show and has since been able to parlay his interests in sports coverage as a National Desk correspondent for NPR based in New York City. Pesca enjoys training his microphone on anything that occurs at a track, arena, stadium, park, fronton, velodrome or air strip (i.e. the plane drag during the World's Strongest Man competition). He has reported from Los Angeles, Cleveland and Gary. He has also interviewed former Los Angeles Ram Cleveland Gary. Pesca is a panelist on the weekly Slate podcast "Hang up and Listen". Pesca, whose writing has appeared in Slate and The Washington Post, is the winner of two Edward R. Murrow awards for radio reporting and, in 1993, was named Emory University Softball Official of the Year.
May 14, 2011: Jennifer Egan & Sam Donsky
Jennifer Egan is the author of The Invisible Circus, which was released as a feature film by Fine Line in 2001, Emerald City and Other Stories, Look at Me, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2001, and the bestselling The Keep. Her new book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, was published in June 2010. Also a journalist, she writes frequently in the New York Times Magazine.
Sam Donsky (C'07) is a second-year student at Penn Law School. He has been involved with Kelly Writers House since 2003 and first shared the KWH podium with Jennifer Egan in May 2005. Donsky's first poetry manuscript, Poems vs. the Volcano, is a collection of 100 poems – one for each movie that he has seen since graduating from college.
May 15, 2010: Beth Kephart & Alice Elliott Dark
Beth Kephart is the author of ten books, including the National Book Award finalist, A Slant of Sun (1998, W.W. Norton and Company); the BookSense pick, Ghosts in the Garden (2005, New World Library); the autobiography of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Flow (2007, Temple University Press); and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover (2007, HarperTeen), House of Dance (2008, HarperCollins), and Nothing but Ghosts (2009, HarperCollins). A fourth young adult novel, The Heart is Not a Size, will be released in March 2010 and a fifth, Dangerous Neighbors, is slated for a fall 2010 release from Egmont. Beth Kephart's acclaimed short story, "The Longest Distance," appears in the May 2009 HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World. She is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart's essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. In the fall of 2009, Kephart will teach at the University of Pennsylvania and serve as the readergirlz author in residence. Kephart is the strategic writing partner in the boutique marketing communications firm, Fusion. She is at work on a novel for adults.
Alice Elliott Dark is the author of two story collections, Naked to the Waist (1991, Houghton Mifflin Co.) and In the Gloaming (2001, Simon & Schuster), and one novel, Think of England (2002, Simon & Schuster). Originally from Bryn Mawr, PA, she attended Kenyon College and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a B.A. in Chinese studies. She received her MA from the Antioch University program in London. Dark has published stories in Doubletake, Book Magazine, Five Points, and Redbook, and contributed essays and reviews to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Harper's Bazaar. Her short story "In the Gloaming" was included in the Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike, and also selected for The Best American Short Stories 1994 by Tobias Wolff. In 1997, it was adapted into an HBO film starring Glenn Close and directed by Christopher Reeve. She is the recipient of an NEA grant and has led numerous workshops. Currently, she lives in New Jersey where she is the Writer in Residence at Rutgers-Newark University.
May 16, 2009: Nick Spitzer's "American Routes: Songs and Stories from the Road"
Folklorist Nick Spitzer is professor of communication and American studies at Tulane University where he began as a Mellon Humanities Fellow in 2004. Nick is also the producer and host of the radio program Louisiana Folklife: A Guide to the State (1985), and The Mississippi Delta Ethnographic Overview (1979) for the National Park Service. He helped create the Folklife Pavilion at the 1984 World's Fair, where he curated The Creole State: An Exhibition of Louisiana Folklife (1984-2004). He served as senior folklife specialist at the Smithsonian (1985-1990) and artistic director for the Folk Masters concert/broadcasts from Carnegie Hall and Wolf Trap (1990-1997) and the Independence Day concerts broadcast from the National Mall (1992-2001).
Nick has been a commentator/producer for NPR's All Things Considered and Fresh Air, PBS's Great Performances, CBS' Sunday Morning, and ABC's Nightline, and Evening News with Peter Jennings. Spitzer directed the film Zydeco: Creole Music and Culture in Rural Louisiana (1986), and has produced or annotated two dozen documentary recordings. In 2002 Nick co-curated 'Raised to the Trade': Creole Building Arts of New Orleans at New Orleans Museum of Art. He is co-editor of the book Public Folklore (1992, 2007) and co-author of Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America's Creole Soul (2006, Penn Press). A former resident scholar at the School of American Research in Santa Fe and a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, Spitzer received the Benjamin Botkin Award in Public Folklore, an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Excellence in Broadcasting Award for American Routes, and was named Louisiana Humanist of the Year in 2006 for cultural recovery efforts after the catastrophe. His interests include Gulf Coast ethnography, cultural creolization, American vernacular music/culture, and public cultural policy. Nick was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow working on traditional creativity in Louisiana Creole communities.
May 17, 2008: A poetry reading featuring former students of Professor Dan Hoffman
For many years the Poet-in-Residence and Director of Creative Writing at Penn before his retirement, Dan Hoffman taught literature courses in the English Department as well as one poetry workshop each year for students of exceptional ability. That one workshop, it turns out, was the foundation upon which Penn's Creative Writing Program was built. The success of Dan's work as a teacher is also evident in the many students who have developed fine careers as poets and teachers themselves.
Readings by Dan's former students — Christina Davis (C'93, G'93), Michael Jennings (C'71), Jay Rogoff (C '75), and J. Allyn Rosser (G'88, GR'91) — were followed by Dan's reading of selections from the work his late wife, the poet Elizabeth McFarland Hoffman.
May 12, 2007: A Celebration of Young Alumni Fiction Writers
Click above for a QuickTime video excerpt: Jessica Lowenthal introduces Courtney Zoffness and Courtney begins her reading
Michael Hyde ('95), whose stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and who recieved a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and a FundaciÛn ValparaÌso artist grant, read from his short story collection What Are You Afraid Of? which won the 2005 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. "Her Hollywood"
Courtney Zoffness ('00), who founded and ran the "Speakeasy" open mic series at the Kelly Writers House, has published nonfiction in Ladies' Home Journal, the Earth Times, and New York's daily Metro, among others, and fiction in publications such as Redivider, the Pedestal Magazine, Washington Square Review, and the Fish Prize Stories Anthology — an international contest. Zoffness works as a copyeditor at Rolling Stone magazine and as a ghostwriter. She's also at work on a novel of her own. She read an excerpt from her book Is It a Fish?
Laura Dave's writing has appeared in Self, Glamour, The New York Observer, and ESPN the Magazine. She is the recipient of a Henry Hoyns Fellowship, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship, and an AWP Intro Award in Short Fiction. She read an excerpt from her first novel, London Is the Best City in America (Viking 2006), which is currently being developed as a major motion picture at Universal Studios.
A free, downloadable recording of the entire event is available here.
