May 2023
Monday, 5/1
Tuesday, 5/2
Wednesday, 5/3
Thursday, 5/4
Friday, 5/5
Saturday, 5/6
Sunday, 5/7
Monday, 5/8
Tuesday, 5/9
Wednesday, 5/10
Thursday, 5/11
Friday, 5/12
Saturday, 5/13
KWH Open House
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM (ET) in person
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Join us in the Kelly Writers House Class of 1942 Garden for our annual Alumni Weekend Open House, where you can renew your acquaintance with the KWH community or get to know this lively and innovative home for writers of all ages and genres. Coffee and light refreshments will be served.
A celebration of Anthony DeCurtis
Two decades of pop culture writing at Penn
4:00 PM (ET) in person and on
YouTube
Supported by: Creative Ventures
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Supported by: Creative Ventures
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
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 Maughan (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.