April 2023
Saturday, 4/1
Sunday, 4/2
Monday, 4/3
Poet, translator, editor Matvei Yankelevich
In conversation with Ahmad Almallah
12:00 PM in person and on YouTube
Co-sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program and the Applebaum Publishers and Editors Fund
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Matvei Yankelevich is a poet, translator, and editor. His books include the poetry collections Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt (Black Square) and Dead Winter (Fonograf), as well as the translations Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook) and Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation for Me to Think (NYRB Poets; with Eugene Ostashevsky), winner of the 2014 National Translation Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, among others. In the 1990s, he co-founded Ugly Duckling Presse where he edited and designed books, periodicals, and ephemera for more than twenty years. As of 2022, he is editor of World Poetry Books, a nonprofit publisher of poetry in translation. He teaches translation and book arts at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
Ahmad Almallah teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Penn. His first book of poems, Bitter English, was published in the Phoenix Poets Series from the University of Chicago Press. He received the 2018 Edith Goldberg Paulson Memorial Prize for Creative Writing, and his set of poems “Recourse” won the 2017 Blanche Colton Williams Fellowship. He holds a PhD in Arabic literature from Indiana University Bloomington and an MFA in poetry from Hunter College.
Writing Food in Asian America
Piyali Bhattacharya, Eric Kim, Lillian Li, Mayukh Sen
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
Co-sponsored by: the Beltran Family Program and the Povich Journalishm Fund
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
"Food writing" is having a moment. Everywhere from film and TV to Instagram posts and TikTok videos, what we eat and how we eat it is in. But the way we use words around food, especially immigrant cuisine, is dated at best, Orientalist at worst. Join a panel of fiction and nonfiction writers as we discuss what it means to use words around immigrant cultures and cuisines, and think through how we talk and write about what we eat. Hosted by Piyali Bhattacharya, recipient of the 2022–2023 Beltran Award for Teaching and Mentoring.
Piyali Bhattacharya’s short stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic, among other publications. She is the editor of the N.E.A. grant-winning anthology Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion. She holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A. from SOAS—University of London, and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison, where she was winner of the Peter Straub Award for Fiction. She is the Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has won the Beltran Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring in Creative Writing.
Eric Kim is a New York Times staff writer and essayist born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. His debut cookbook, Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home (Clarkson Potter, 2022), was an instant New York Times Best Seller. A former digital manager for the Food Network, contributing editor for Saveur magazine and senior editor for Food52 (where he amassed a devoted readership for his "Table for One" column), he now hosts regular videos on NYT Cooking's YouTube channel and writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine. Eric taught writing and literature as a graduate fellow at Columbia University, and his essays have been featured in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine and The Best American Food Writing. He lives with his rescue pup, Quentin Compson, in New York City.
Lillian Li is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.
Mayukh Sen is the author of Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (2021), which was named a best book of 2021 by NPR, one of the Wall Street Journal’s favorite books of 2021, a New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick, and a nominee for the 2022 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. He is currently writing a biography of the actress Merle Oberon, to be published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2025. He has won a James Beard Award and an IACP Award for his food writing, and his work has been anthologized in three editions of The Best American Food Writing. He teaches creative writing at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.
Tuesday, 4/4
Do Not Draw Me: Making Art in India's Northeast
Parismita Singh in conversation with Karen Redrobe
12:30 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
Co-sponsored by: the South Asia Center, The Fund for Feminist Projects, and Kauders Lunch Series
Organized by: Sonal Khullar
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
This presentation at the Kelly Writers House will address non-fiction graphic reportage, community art practices, documentary sketches, and collaborative projects such as Singh’s edited book Centrepiece (Zubaan, 2017). Singh views drawing as a feminist practice shaped by political exigencies and historical circumstances of living and working in northeastern India. It is a practice that requires constant negotiation of ethical and aesthetic norms, including considerations of when and what not to draw. The conversation will focus on Singh’s NRC (National Register of Citizens) Sketchbook (2018-2019), published in Huffington Post (India), and its representation of women’s voices, indigeneity, citizenship, dissent, censorship, and democracy. Such projects are a form of solidarity and resistance or singing in dark times.
Parismita Singh is an artist and writer based in Guwahati, India. Her publications include the graphic novels The Hotel at the End of the World (2009) and Mara and the Clay Cows (2015); a collection of short stories Peace has Come (2018); and the anthology Centrepiece: New Writing and Art from Northeast India (2017). She is the author of the NRC [National Register of Citizens] Sketchbook (2018-2019), a graphic reportage series for the now defunct Huffington Post (India). She writes an illustrated column on the confluence of art, culture, and fashion, with a focus on northeastern India, for The Voice of Fashion, an online design magazine.
Wednesday, 4/5
Thursday, 4/6
Friday, 4/7
Saturday, 4/8
Sunday, 4/9
Monday, 4/10
Stand-Ups Sit Down
Lew Schneider in conversation with Al Filreis
6:00 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Lew Schneider’s path to a TV career was pretty typical. He had a history degree from Penn, didn’t want to go to law school or teach so...comedy was the only alternative. After a few stints in front of the camera: game show host, HBO stand-up special, and a couple of sitcoms, he turned to writing. His credits include The New Adventures of Old Christine, American Dad, Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS) which won Emmy Awards and millions of people watched and Men of a Certain Age (TNT) which won a Peabody Award and nobody watched. For the last ten years he as worked as a writer and producer on the ABC comedy The Goldbergs and has directed more than fifty episodes. He has a brand new knee...
Tuesday, 4/11
Spy Daughter, Queer Girl
A conversation with author Leslie Absher
6:00 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
hosted by: Kathryn Watterson
sponsored by: the Povich Journalism Program Fund
In her memoir Spy Daughter, Queer Girl, Leslie Absher pursues the truth: of her family, her identity, and her father's role in Greece's CIA-backed junta. As a guide, Absher brings readers to the shade of plane trees in Greece, to queer discos in Boston, and to tense diner meals with her aging CIA father. As a memoirist, Absher renders a lifetime of hazy, shapeshifting truths in high-definition vibrance.
Leslie Absher is a journalist and personal essay writer. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Ms., Independent, Greek Reporter, and San Francisco Magazine. She was awarded an honorable mention for non-fiction by Bellevue Literary Review and lives in Oakland, California with her artist/comic book writer wife. Visit her at leslieabsher.com.
Wednesday, 4/12
A reading by Tyehimba Jess
Brave Testimony: A celebration of Poetry of the African Diaspora
5:30 (ET) in person
Sponsored by: The Center for Africana Studies
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Leadbelly was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.”
Jess, a Cave Canem and NYU Alumni, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a 2004–2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Jess is also a veteran of the 2000 and 2001 Green Mill Poetry Slam Team, and won a 2000–2001 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a 2006 Whiting Fellowship. He presented his poetry at the 2011 TedX Nashville Conference and won a 2016 Lannan Literary Award in Poetry. He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2018. Jess is a Professor of English at College of Staten Island.
Thursday, 4/13
Blutt Songwriter Symposium: Britt Daniel
In conversation with Anthony DeCurtis
5:00 PM (ET) reception (in person only)
6:00 PM (ET) conversation (in person only)
RSVP REQUIRED to attend in person
RSVP REQUIRED to attend in person
Britt Daniel co-founded Spoon in 1994 in Austin, Texas. Some thirteen records later, Spoon remains among the most respected and critically acclaimed groups of its generation, creating an enviable body of work that has withstood the myriad whims and vicissitudes of the music industry without ever compromising its principles (but only because no one offered to put them on a Shrek soundtrack). Elsewhere, Daniel has also created soundtracks for films, formed the band Divine Fits, collaborated with such artists as Ray Davies, Bright Eyes, and the legendary producer Adrian Sherwood, and has generally spent most his days thinking about that ever-elusive next sound. Spoon's latest album, Lucifer on the Sofa, was nominated for a Grammy in 2022.
Friday, 4/14
Saturday, 4/15
Sunday, 4/16
Monday, 4/17
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
The Kelly Writers House is run collectively by members of its community, especially students. The Writers House Planning Committee — also known as "the Hub" — meets monthly to discuss Writers House projects and programs. Join us at this first meeting of the year to find out about some of the things we will work on this year, including our annual marathon reading, and to find out how you can get involved with community-led events and projects.
Tuesday, 4/18
Wednesday, 4/19
A CONVERSATION WITh NOVELIST BECKY CHAlSEN (C'15)
Kauders Lunch Program
12:00 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Watch: here
Becky Chalsen (C'15) is a novelist and film/tv executive living in New York City. She is a director of development at Sunday Night, John ohn Krasinski's production company, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Becky is a quadruplet and married to her high school sweetheart — also an identical twin — whose family has spent summers on Fire Island for more than three decades. Kismet (Dutton 2023) is her first novel.
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:30 PM (ET) in the Arts Cafe and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Watch: here
Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.
Thursday, 4/20
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Marathon Reading
1:00 PM - 9:00 PM (or until it's done)
Supported by: Creative Ventures
Sign up as a reader
Join us for an all-day live public reading of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a novel by Ocean Vuong that details the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, and offers a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Want to help read? You can SIGN UP HERE for a ten-minute slot. You are also welcome to stop by anytime during the day to listen to the reading and sample some of the foods referenced in the book, which will be available at various times throughout the day.
Friday, 4/21
Saturday, 4/22
Sunday, 4/23
Monday, 4/24
A reading by Wayne Koestenbaum
Kelly Writers House Fellows Program
6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp required: whfellow@writing.upenn.edu
Watch: on YouTube
Born and raised in San Jose, California, Wayne Koestenbaum is a poet, critic, novelist, artist, and performer, having published nineteen books, including The Queen’s Throat, which was a national Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Praised by many for his work’s blend of risk and joy, Susan Sontag called The Queen’s Throat a “brilliant book.” His other books include Camp Marmalade, The Pink Trance Notebooks, My 1980s & Other Essays, Andy Warhol: A Biography, and Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard University, he received an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His poems and essays have been widely published in anthologies, including The Believer, The Iowa Review, Artforum, and The New Yorker. In 2017, his first piano/vocal record, Lounge Act, was released by Ugly Duckling Presse records. In 2020, Koestenbaum won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Previously an Associate Professor of English at Yale, he is now a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
Tuesday, 4/25
A conversation with Wayne Koestenbaum
Kelly Writers House Fellows Program
10:00 AM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp required: whfellow@writing.upenn.edu
Watch: on YouTube
Born and raised in San Jose, California, Wayne Koestenbaum is a poet, critic, novelist, artist, and performer, having published nineteen books, including The Queen’s Throat, which was a national Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Praised by many for his work’s blend of risk and joy, Susan Sontag called The Queen’s Throat a “brilliant book.” His other books include Camp Marmalade, The Pink Trance Notebooks, My 1980s & Other Essays, Andy Warhol: A Biography, and Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard University, he received an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His poems and essays have been widely published in anthologies, including The Believer, The Iowa Review, Artforum, and The New Yorker. In 2017, his first piano/vocal record, Lounge Act, was released by Ugly Duckling Presse records. In 2020, Koestenbaum won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Previously an Associate Professor of English at Yale, he is now a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
Wednesday, 4/26
KWH Zine Fest
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM in person
REGISTER HERE by April 25 to bring your zine
Zine makers (and enthusiasts!) are welcome to join us in the Writers House garden for our annual Zine Fest, co-organized by students in Kayla Romberger's Pixel to Print course. We'll have table space available for anyone who wants to bring their zines for sale or trade - plus food!
Creative Writing Program Honors Thesis Reading
5:00 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program
A number of our graduating seniors have been working hard to complete their Creative Writing thesis projects — long-form creative literary works in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, and mixed genres that serve as the capstones to their time at Penn as writers. Join us in person or online for a celebration of their collective achievements. Several seniors will read from their projects.