September 2026
Tuesday, 9/1/2026
Wednesday, 9/2/2026
Thursday, 9/3/2026
Friday, 9/4/2026
Saturday, 9/5/2026
Sunday, 9/6/2026
Monday, 9/7/2026
Tuesday, 9/8/2026
Wednesday, 9/9/2026
Predicting the Future: Real and Imagined Technologies
Novelist Isabel Kim (C’18) in conversation with tech writer Amanda Silberling (C’18)
Cheryl J. Family Fiction Program
6:00 PM in the Arts Café
Isabel J. Kim (C’18) lives near New York City in an apartment filled with books and swords. She is the author of numerous short stories and has won the Nebula, Locus, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and reprinted in multiple best of the year anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing law or podcasting. Sublimation is her first novel.
Amanda Silberling (C’18) is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the impact of technology on culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She studied English and fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
Thursday, 9/10/2026
Friday, 9/11/2026
Saturday, 9/12/2026
Sunday, 9/13/2026
Monday, 9/14/2026
Tuesday, 9/15/2026
Wednesday, 9/16/2026
Ortiz’s War: The Allies’ Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France
A conversation with alumni journalist Katie Sanders (C’12) Sylvia Kauders Lunch Series [link: https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/involved/series/kauders/] 12:00 PM in the Arts Café hosted by: Dick PolmanJoin us for a conversation with journalist Katie S. Sanders (C’22), co-author of the new historical nonfiction book Ortiz’s War: The Allies’ Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France. We'll cover an extraordinary true story of resistance and heroism in Nazi-occupied France — and the author’s journey to uncover her late grandfather's secret war.
About Ortiz's War
Behind enemy lines in wartime France, American Marine Peter Ortiz blew up Nazi railyards,
kept one step ahead of the Gestapo, and braved frigid mountain trails to shuttle downed Allied
airmen to safety. Ortiz emerged from World War II with more combat medals than any other
member of America's first spy agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner
to the CIA). Post-war, Ortiz worked with John Ford and John Wayne in Hollywood, appearing
in more than two dozen films (at times donning his military uniform). His own life story
could rival any of them.
Katie S. Sanders (C’12) is an award-winning journalist who has written for National Geographic,
The New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, New York, TIME, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, Insider,
Glamour, and Marie Claire. Her reporting has brought her to the CIA, the White House, and the
homes and reunions of many World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors. After discovering
that her late grandfather—a Jewish-American pilot shot down over France—was rescued by Peter Ortiz,
she teamed up with historian and NYT-bestselling author Nicholas Reynolds to co-author Ortiz’s War.
A 2012 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she lives in Brookline, MA with her husband, sons,
Havanese, and many books.