April 2020

Wednesday, 4/1

Soviet Diaspora Poetry by the Cheburashka Collective

8:00 PM via Zoom

co-sponsored by: Comparative Literature and Theory

This event will take place virtually via Zoom. You can access the meeting HERE.

Readable text for the event: PDF

The Cheburashka Collective is a growing community of women and non-binary writers whose work has been shaped by immigration from the Soviet Union to the U.S. Join us online via Zoom to hear poetry by Marina Blitshteyn, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Ruth Madievsky, Luisa Muradyan, Gala Mukomolova, Alina Pleskova, and Olga Livshin, with host Natalia Smirnov.

Marina Blishteyn: Born in the Soviet Union, Marina litshteyn and her family fled to the US in 1991 as refugees. She is the author of Two Hunters, her first full-length collection, published by Argos Books in 2019 with a CLMP Face-Out grant. Prior chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books), $kill$ (dancing girl press), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books), and most recently Sheet Music with Buffalo's own Sunnyoutside Press. Her work has been anthologized in the new Brooklyn Poets Anthology, The &Now Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, Why I Am Not a Painter, My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry, Through Clenched Teeth, and Far Villages, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. Recent work can be found in Hyperallergic, Peach Mag, No, Dear Magazine, and Sixth Finch. She teaches Composition and Rhetoric and experimental nonfiction, and occasionally runs The Loose Literary Canons, a feminist reading group in NYC.

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019); Don't Touch the Bones (Lost Horse Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize; and 40 WEEKS, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2022. Her recent poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review , and The Nation, among others. Julia is the editor of Construction Magazine. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and is completing her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philly with her two kids, two cats, one dog, and one husband.

Ruth Madievsky is the author of a poetry collection, "Emergency Brake" (Tavern Books, 2016), winner of the Wrolstad Contemporary Poetry Series. Her work appears in Ploughshares, Tin House, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. When she is not writing, she works as an HIV and oncology pharmacist in Boston.

Gala Mukomolova earned an MFA from the University of Michigan. She is the author of WITHOUT PROTECTION (Coffee House Press, 2019) and the chapbook One Above One Below: Positions & Lamentations (YesYes Books 2018). Her poetry and essays have appeared in POETRY, PEN America, the Billfold, and elsewhere. In 2016 Gala won the Discovery Poetry Prize. She writes astrology-inspired love letters under the name Galactic Rabbit.

Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Russian immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. Her work has been featured in American Poetry Review, Thrush, Entropy , Cosmonauts Avenue, Peach Mag , Meduza, and more. She is co-editor of bedfellows magazine and her chapbook, What Urge Will Save Us , was published by Spooky Girlfriend Press in 2017. Find her at @nahhhlina on Twitter or alinapleskova.com.

Luisa Muradyan is originally from the Ukraine and holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston where she was the recipient of an Inprint Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Fellowship and a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship. She is the author of American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press) and was the Editor-in-Chief of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts from 2016-2018. She was also the recipient of the 2017 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the 2016 Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and non binary writers from the former Soviet Union. Previous poems have appeared in Poetry International, the Los Angeles Review, West Branch, Blackbird, and Ninth Letter among others. You can also find her on Twitter at @LuisaMuradyan.

Olga Livshin is an English-language poet, essayist, and literary translator. Raised in Odessa and in Moscow, she came to the United States as a teenager with her family. She is the author of a hybrid collection A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman (Poets & Traitors Press, 2019). Her work is published in the Kenyon Review, Poetry International, Borderlands, Gyroscope, and elsewhere. She is an editorial and communication consultant in the Philly area. olgalivshin.com, @olgalivshin.

Natalia Smirnov is a human, writer, scholar, educator and media and experience maker. Born and raised in Russia and molded in the suburbs of New Jersey, art colonies of Philadelphia, and lakeside lairs of Chicago, Natalia carries the grit and glory of each of her homes as part of her deeply nomadic identity. Natalia earned Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of two technology-mediated civic learning contexts. Natalia holds a B.A. in American Culture & Media Arts and a graduate certificate in Diversity Leadership (with training in Transformational Social Therapy) from Temple University. She has taught video production, civic journalism, media literacy, web development, human-centered design and multidisciplinary art-making in Philadelphia and Chicago. In addition to research and teaching, Natalia designs and facilitates immersive game experiences to engage participants in critically examining issues of social inequality and cultural difference; organizes nurturing gatherings and writing retreats; and collaborates with educators and organizations to help them analyze and improve their pedagogy and assessment practices.

Thursday, 4/2

Friday, 4/3

Saturday, 4/4

Sunday, 4/5

Monday, 4/6

Tuesday, 4/7

Wednesday, 4/8

Thursday, 4/9

Friday, 4/10

Saturday, 4/11

Sunday, 4/12

Monday, 4/13

Tuesday, 4/14

Wednesday, 4/15

Thursday, 4/16

Friday, 4/17

Saturday, 4/18

Sunday, 4/19

Monday, 4/20

Tuesday, 4/21

Wednesday, 4/22

Thursday, 4/23

Friday, 4/24

Saturday, 4/25

Sunday, 4/26

Monday, 4/27

Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris

Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

rsvp required: whfellow@writing.upenn.edu

6:30 PM streaming live via KWH-TV and YouTube

introduced by: Julia Bloch

Note: this event has been combined with the conversation below and will occur virtually.

Jenna Wortham, born in Virginia, is a technology reporter and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. Jenna received her bachelor's degree in medical anthropology from the University of Virginia then moved to San Francisco to work with San Francisco Magazine, Girlfriend Magazine, write for SFist and later, Wired. She joined The New York Times in 2008 and has since worked on issues like pop culture, technology, race, and queer identity. Some of her works include Girl Crush Zine among many others which have appeared in The Morning News, Matter, Vogue, The Awl, Bust, The Hairpin, and The Fader among other publications. In 2016, she started co-hosting with Wesley Morris The New York Times podcast Still processing , a culture podcast that won a 2017 Webby Award in the Podcast & Digital Audio category, and was nominated for a 2019 Shorty Award.

Wesley Morris, born in Philadelphia, is an American journalist, film critic, and co-host for New York Times podcast Still Processing along with Jenna Wortham. He graduated from Yale University where he did film criticism at The Yale Daily News after which he wrote film reviews and essays for the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Review. In 2002, he joined The Boston Review where he reviewed films along Ty Burr. During his time at The Boston Review, he won the Pulitzer Award for Criticism and was cited as having, "smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office." Throughout his career, he featured in shows like NECN, For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, and wrote for ESPN's website Grantland. In October 2015, he joined The New York Times as critic-at-large and also made significant contributions for The New York Times Magazine. Morris was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, recognized for his 2014 Grantland columns, "Let's Be Real," "After Normal," and "If U Seek Amy."

Tuesday, 4/28

Brunch with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris

Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

rsvp required: whfellow@writing.upenn.edu

Note: this event has been combined with the reading above and will occur virtually on 4/27.

Jenna Wortham, born in Virginia, is a technology reporter and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. Jenna received her bachelor's degree in medical anthropology from the University of Virginia then moved to San Francisco to work with San Francisco Magazine, Girlfriend Magazine, write for SFist and later, Wired. She joined The New York Times in 2008 and has since worked on issues like pop culture, technology, race, and queer identity. Some of her works include Girl Crush Zine among many others which have appeared in The Morning News, Matter, Vogue, The Awl, Bust, The Hairpin, and The Fader among other publications. In 2016, she started co-hosting with Wesley Morris The New York Times podcast Still processing , a culture podcast that won a 2017 Webby Award in the Podcast & Digital Audio category, and was nominated for a 2019 Shorty Award.

Wesley Morris, born in Philadelphia, is an American journalist, film critic, and co-host for New York Times podcast Still Processing along with Jenna Wortham. He graduated from Yale University where he did film criticism at The Yale Daily News after which he wrote film reviews and essays for the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Review. In 2002, he joined The Boston Review where he reviewed films along Ty Burr. During his time at The Boston Review, he won the Pulitzer Award for Criticism and was cited as having, "smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office." Throughout his career, he featured in shows like NECN, For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, and wrote for ESPN's website Grantland. In October 2015, he joined The New York Times as critic-at-large and also made significant contributions for The New York Times Magazine. Morris was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, recognized for his 2014 Grantland columns, "Let's Be Real," "After Normal," and "If U Seek Amy."

Wednesday, 4/29

Virtual Honors Thesis Reading

Creative Writing Program

5:00 PM streaming on YouTube and KWH-TV

Seventeen 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. We will celebrate their hard work on Wednesday, April 29, at 5:00 PM, with a live and livestreamed reading of several honors theses. Tune in here.

This year's featured readers include: Charlotte Bausch, Juan Botero, Faith Cho, Caroline Curran, Lauren Drake, Briar Essex, Samantha Friskey, Grace Knight, Jessica Li, Per Loufman, Sara Merican, Will Miller, Mary Osunlana, Juliette Palmero, Clara Phillips, Lily Snider, and Annabelle Williams.

Thursday, 4/30