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All events take place at the Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia (U of P).

• 7:00-9:00PM: Creative Writing Workshop, led by Anthony Scutti.

• 4:30-6:00PM: Planning Committee Meeting. If you would like to join the Kelly Writers House planning committee, email us at wh@writing.upenn.edu.

• 7:00-9:00PM: Talking Film screenwriting workshop. Screening of All About Eve (1950). Workshop leader Ernie Vecchione writes, "Is it a play on film or a film that apes plays? Either way, it's all talk talk talk, the big boo boo modern audiences HATE today. It's still riveting stuff, using anecdotes to tell a complete story, an approach rarely done today." The screening will be followed by a discussion.

• 8:00PM: Xconnect publication party, with poetry readings by Temple professors Toby Olson, Alan Singer & William Van Wert, followed by reception.

  William F. Van Wert is the author of several recent books: Memory Links (essays, University of Georgia Press, 1995, winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Competition); What's It All About (novel, Simon & Schuster, 1996); Stool Wives (novel, Plover Press, 1996); Don Quickshot (novel in verse, Livingston University Press, 1997); The Invention of Ice Skating (poetry, Avison Press, 1997); Proper Myth (poetry, Orchises Press, 1998); Vital Signs (poetry, Urthona Press, 1998, winner of the William Blake Award); and The Advancement of Ignorance (short stories, Bookmark Press, forthcoming). He teaches Film and Creative Writing at Temple University.

  Toby Olson has published several books of poetry, the most recent of which are We Are the Fire (New Directions) and Unfinished Building (Coffee House Press), and 6 novels including The Life of Jesus and Seaview (New Directions); The Woman Who Escaped from Shame (Random House); and Utah, Dorit in Lesbos, and At Sea (Simon & Schuster). His has received NEA, Guggenheim, and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, and numerous awards including the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is a Professor of English at Temple University.

  Alan Singer is a novelist, literary critic and Professor of English at Temple University. His novels include: The Ox-Breadth (New Earth), The Charnel Imp (Fiction Collective), and Memory Wax (FC2/Black Ice). His books of criticism include: A Metaphorics of Fiction: Discontinuity and Discourse in the Modern Novel (Florida), The Subject as Action: Transformation and Totality in Narrative Aesthetics (Michigan).

• 8:00-10:00PM: Freelance Journalism Workshop, led by Paul Sherman, a former journalist who has published stories in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Miami Herald, and other publications. All are welcome! If you are interested in the workshop or want more information, email Paul. Room 202.

• 9:00PM: Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes, an open mic performance night for Penn students. For more information, email Courtney Zoffness or Emily Cohen.

• 6:00PM: Philly Talks #5 -- Poets Tom Mandel and Ammiel Alcalay read and discuss their own and each other's work, followed by a dinner. RSVP for the dinner to wh@writing.upenn.edu.

Ammiel Alcalay is a writer, translator & poet living in New York City. He has published one book of poetry, the cairo notebooks (Singing Horse Press, 1993). He has also published a critical work from Minnesota Press titled After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture, a work which looks at the cross-influences of Herbraic and Arabic literature.

Tom Mandel is the author of 10 books of poetry, including Ency (Tuumba, 1978), a foundational work in the early language poetry movement, Realism (Burning Deck, 1991), Letters of the Law (Sun & Moon 1994) and Prospect of Release (Chax, 1996). He attended the University of Chicago and currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Recordings from this event that have been made available as part of the PENNsound project can be found here.

• 5:15-7:15PM: Penn and Pencil Club Creative Writing Workshop for Penn Staff. Room 202.

• 7:00-8:00PM: Reading by Yusef Komunyakaa, followed by a dinner. Please RSVP for the dinner to wh@writing.upenn.edu.

  Yusef Komunyakaa received the 1994 Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley-Tufts Poetry Award for Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems. He is the author of ten books, including Magic City (1992), Dien Cai Dau (1988), I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), and Copacetic (1984). He also co-edited The Jazz Poetry Anthology (with J.A. Sascha Feinstein, 1991). His awards include the Thomas Forcade Award (1991), the William Faulkner Prize from the University of Rennes in France (1994), the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine (1997), and the Hanes Poetry Prize (1997). His new book, Thieves of Paradise, was just published by Wesleyan University Press. He is professor in the Council of Humanities and Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

  Recordings from this event that have been made available as part of the PENNsound project can be found here.

• 5:00-7:00PM: Roundtable conversation about experimental poetry, hosted by Heather Starr. Poets we'll talk about: (Alice) Notley and (Nancy) Shaw. Arts Cafe.

• 8:30PM: Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes, an open mic performance night for Penn students. For more information, email Courtney Zoffness or Emily Cohen.

• 5:00PM: Poetry reading by James Tate.

  James Tate won the 1995 Tanning Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His Selected Poems received the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and his collection Worshipful Company of Fletchers won the 1994 National Book Award. He is on the permanent faculty at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

  Recordings of this event that have been made available as part of the PENNsound project can be found here.

• 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading Project for Kids! For more information, contact Nijmie Dzurinko.

• 12 Midnight: LIVE at the Writers House #8 with WXPN 88.5, featuring Lamont Steptoe, Rebekah Grossman, She-Haw, Shulamith Wechter-Caine, Chris McCreary, Ben & Yanni, Carolyn Jacobson, Matt Hart, and James Michael Trainer.

• 4:00-6:00 p.m. Talking Film and Bisexual Gay Lesbian Transgender Awareness Days (B-GLAD) present a workshop with videomaker Terri Dewhirst, Room 202.

  Terri Dewhirst is an experimental videomaker. She teaches video production at Marymount College in Manhattan. During her workshop at the Writers House, she'll show her short video Endoscope, which sifts through media and medical representations of hermaphrodites and questions the very notion of gender. A question & answer session will follow.

• 4:30-6:00PM: Planning Committee Meeting. If you would like to join the Kelly Writers House planning committee, email us at wh@writing.upenn.edu.

• 5:00-7:00PM: Reading by Penn professor Mark Harman, from his translation of Franz Kafka's The Castle, published by Schocken Books. Panel discussion of Kafka and translation to follow. Panel participants include, in part, John Zilcosky, Liliane Weissberg, and Kerry Sherin.

• 7:30-9:30PM: Avant garde musical performance by The Things.

• 8:00-10:00PM: Freelance Journalism Workshop, led by Paul Sherman, a former journalist who has published stories in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Miami Herald, and other publications. All are welcome! If you are interested in the workshop or want more information, email Paul.

• 7:00-8:45PM: The Jewish Renaissance Project presents "Video Holocaust Testimonies."

  "Is there a more or less effective way to respond to the recorded testimony of Holocaust survivors? What are the limits, if any, of our response? We will view short excerpts from video testimonies of survivors, and discuss them by asking these and other questions."

  To register, call 898-5443 or email djl@pobox.upenn.edu.

• 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading Project for Kids! For more information, contact Nijmie Dzurinko.

• 8:00-10:00PM: Full Circle, an open mic for Philly poets, coordinated by Cecily Kellogg and Charlie O'Hay and featuring Sandy Crimmins (spoken word) and Richard Drueding (guitar), performing their collaborative work, Iowa Summer

• 7:00-9:00PM: Creative Writing Workshop, led by Anthony Scutti.

• 12:00-2:00PM: Art opening for Edison Fareira School student artists.

• 5:00-7:00PM: Writing Advisors' meeting, Arts Cafe.

• 7:00PM: Talking Film Screenwriting Workshop, led by Ernie Vecchione. In tonight's workshop, the group will do a sit-down reading from a spec script by Mr. Vecchione himself.

• 8:00-10:00PM: Freelance Journalism Workshop, led by Paul Sherman, a former journalist who has published stories in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Miami Herald, and other publications. All are welcome! If you are interested in the workshop or want more information, email Paul.