October 2023
Sunday, 10/1
Monday, 10/2
Tuesday, 10/3
A conversation with Gretchen Morgenson
Weber Symposium
5:00 PM: reception in person
5:30 PM: interview/conversation in person and on YouTube
hosted by: Al Filreis
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Gretchen Morgenson is the Senior Financial Reporter in the Investigations unit at NBC News, a position she assumed in Dec. 2019. Her stories appear on NBCNews.com and as segments on NBC News network, cable and streaming television shows. Previously, Ms. Morgenson spent two years as Senior Special Writer in the Investigations unit at The Wall Street Journal, and almost 20 years as assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at The New York Times. She began covering world financial markets for The Times in May 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street in which she revealed deep conflicts of interest among powerful and respected brokerage firm analysts. She is co-author, with Joshua Rosner, of Reckless Endangerment, a 2011 New York Times bestseller about the origins of the mortgage crisis, and These are the Plunderers, a Wall Street Journal bestseller scrutinizing the private equity industry published in May 2023.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Ms. Morgenson has won three Gerald Loeb Awards--one in 2002 for excellence in financial commentary, another in 2009 for her coverage of Wall Street and a third with a group of New York Times reporters in 2009. The following year, she received the Elliott V. Bell Award from the New York financial Writers’ Association for her “significant long-term contribution to the profession of financial journalism.” In 2018, she received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for her “outstanding contribution to business journalism.”
Wednesday, 10/4
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:30 PM in person and on YouTube
rsvp: register here to attend in person
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, 10/5
Political Reporting
Nora Magid Mentorship Prize 20th anniversary alumni panel
Luis Ferre-Sadurni, Matt Flegenheimer, and Ashley Parker, moderated by Jessica Goodman
12:00 PM in person and on YouTube
hosted by: Jessica Goodman
sponsored by: the Povich Journalism Program Fund, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize
watch: here
If you've ever wondered what it's like to report from the front lines of political campaigns, be part of the White House Press Pool, or expose the dark (and sometimes funny!) underbelly of our country's political climate, now's the time to find out. Join renowned political reporters Ashley Parker of the Washington Post, and Matt Flegenheimer and Luis Ferre-Sadurni of the New York Times as they share stories from the scrum, reveal their tips on sourcing and finding scoops, and advice for budding reporters. Moderated by bestselling author Jessica Goodman, the Political Reporting panel will focus on how to break into the industry, what it takes to be a successful political journalist, and how these ace reporters are preparing for the next major election season.
LUIS FERRÉ-SADURNÍ (C’17) is the Albany bureau chief at the New York Times, where has covered New York State politics and government since late 2019. He covered Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's national rise during the coronavirus pandemic and reported on the multiple scandals that led to his resignation in late 2021. He currently covers Gov. Kathy Hochul, who succeeded Mr. Cuomo, and the State Legislature, with a focus on New York's affordability crisis and the overlooked ways that lobbying forces shape public policy. Luis was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and graduated from Penn in 2017 with a major in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). At Penn, he worked at the Daily Pennsylvanian as a senior writer and politics reporter, and interned at the Philadelphia Inquirer. After graduation, he moved to New York City for a three-month internship at the New York Times metro desk. He ended up reporting on Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact in the Caribbean before being hired as a full-time reporter, covering crime, breaking news, and housing before transitioning to politics.
Matt Flegenheimer (C'11) is a correspondent at the New York Times. His primary focus is long-form profiles of notable figures — in politics and otherwise — for the Times and Times Magazine. Since joining the paper in 2011, he has covered two presidential campaigns, the Trump era in Washington, New York City transportation and City Hall.
Jessica Goodman 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, The Cut, Elle, and Marie Claire.
Ashley Parker is senior national political correspondent for the Washington Post, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Most recently, she served as the White House bureau chief, covering the first two years of the Biden presidency, as well as the entirety of the Trump presidency. In 2022, she was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for their coverage of the causes, costs and aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2018, for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. She was also part of the Washington Post team that won the George Polk Award for national reporting in 2022, for the project “The Attack,” which chronicled the January 6 attack. In 2019, Parker served as one of the moderators for the Democratic presidential primary debate in Atlanta, hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Parker joined the Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns, and Congress, among other things. She is an NBC/MSNBC senior political analyst, and has also written for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Glamour, and The Washingtonian, as well as other publications. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, with a degree in both English (creative writing) and Communications, and lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, New York Times political correspondent Mike Bender, and their three daughters.
Careers in Journalism and Media
Nora Magid Mentorship Prize 20th anniversary alumni panel
Madeleine Ngo, Ashley Parker, and Jason Schwartz with moderator Isabella Simonetti
5:30 PM in person and on YouTube
hosted by: Isabella Simonetti
sponsored by: the Povich Journalism Program Fund, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize
Hoping to work in journalism, media, or publishing after college? The annual Careers in Journalism and New Media alumni panel — co-sponsored by the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize — focuses on how you can prepare for first jobs and careers in print, broadcast and online media, publishing, and related fields, as well as how to make decisions about extracurriculars, internships, and grad school in these areas. Moderated by Isabella Simonetti of the Wall Street Journal, the conversation will feature past winners of the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize: Madeleine Ngo of The New York Times, Ashley Parker of The Washington Post, and Jason Schwartz of Sports Illustrated. For more info about the prize and a full list of winners, visit the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize page.
Madeleine Ngo is an economic policy correspondent at The New York Times, based in the Washington bureau. She previously covered economic policy at the Times as the 2021–22 Rosenbaum fellow. She has interned at The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Dallas Morning News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Vox. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 and was senior news editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian's 135th board.
Ashley Parker is senior national political correspondent for the Washington Post, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Most recently, she served as the White House bureau chief, covering the first two years of the Biden presidency, as well as the entirety of the Trump presidency. In 2022, she was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for their coverage of the causes, costs and aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2018, for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. She was also part of the Washington Post team that won the George Polk Award for national reporting in 2022, for the project “The Attack,” which chronicled the January 6 attack. In 2019, Parker served as one of the moderators for the Democratic presidential primary debate in Atlanta, hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Parker joined the Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns, and Congress, among other things. She is an NBC/MSNBC senior political analyst, and has also written for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Glamour, and The Washingtonian, as well as other publications. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, with a degree in both English (creative writing) and Communications, and lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, New York Times political correspondent Mike Bender, and their three daughters.
Jason Schwartz is the senior editor for investigations and enterprise at Sports Illustrated. Previously, he worked as a media reporter for POLITICO, a senior editor for ESPN The Magazine and in ESPN’s Outside the Lines investigative unit, and as an editor and writer for Boston magazine. His writing has also appeared in Grantland, Slate, and the Boston Globe, among other places.
Isabella Simonetti is a media reporter at The Wall Street Journal where she covers cable news, streaming and sports media. She joined The Journal from The New York Times where she was the David Carr Fellow in Business Reporting. At The Times, Isabella covered breaking business economics news and wrote a number of enterprise stories on topics ranging from media to personal finance. Over the course of her fellowship, she wrote half a dozen stories for the front page of The Times Previously, Isabella was a media reporter at the New York Observer. Isabella is originally from New York City and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, she served as president of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Friday, 10/6
Saturday, 10/7
Sunday, 10/8
Monday, 10/9
Tuesday, 10/10
Chili Cook-Off
5:30 PM (ET) in person
rsvp: register here to make chili and attend in person
It’s time for the revival of our annual Kelly Writers House Chili Cook-Off! Anyone can enter the competition and compete to win the title of best chili maker. The Cook-Off is open to teams and individuals. To participate, please make a big batch of your best chili and bring it to the KWH ready to eat by 5:30 PM for a community tasting. We’ll reimburse you up to $40 for ingredients (so hang on to your receipts). Please register here to attend in person.
Wednesday, 10/11
Thursday, 10/12
Friday, 10/13
Saturday, 10/14
Sunday, 10/15
Monday, 10/16
Novelist Elizabeth Silver
in conversation with Lorene Cary about The Majority
12:00 PM in person and on YouTube
sponsored by: the Wexler Fund
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Elizabeth L Silver is the author of two previous books; The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, a novel, which was published in seven languages, and the memoir, The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA, and Temple University Beasley School of Law, Elizabeth has also written for New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, and McSweeney’s. She currently teaches creative writing with UCLA and is the founder and director of Onward Literary. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Novelist Alissa Nutting
Lucid Fiction Program
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Alissa Nutting is a novelist, screenwriter, and showrunner, most recently of the Adult Swim & HBO MAX animated series Teenage Euthanasia, whose second season debuts in July, as well as the HBO MAX original comedy Made For Love based on her New York Times Editor’s Choice novel of the same name.
Tuesday, 10/17
A reading by Caren Beilin & Hilary Plum
Whenever We Feel Like It
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
hosted by: Michelle Taransky
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Caren Beilin is the author of the novel Revenge of the Scapegoat (Dorothy, 2022), winner of the Vermont Book Award for fiction. Other books include Blackfishing the IUD (Wolfman Books, 2019), SPAIN (Rescue Press, 2018), and The University of Pennsylvania (Noemi Press, 2014). Her work appears in Fence, AGNI, and Dreginald. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and lives close by, in Vermont.
Hilary Plum is the author of is the author of five books, including Excisions, a volume of poetry (Black Lawrence, 2023); Hole Studies, an essay collection (Fonograf, 2022); and the novel Strawberry Fields which won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose (2018). With Zach Savich she edits the Open Prose Series at Rescue Press. She teaches at Cleveland State and in the NEOMFA program, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center. Recent work has appeared in Granta, Astra, American Poetry Review, College Literature, the Cleveland Review of Books, & elsewhere.
Wednesday, 10/18
The Little Magazine
A panel discussion with editors from The Baffler, n+1 and Lux
Applebaum Editors and Publishers Series
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a conversation about the past, present, and future of the little magazine with Matthew Shen Goodman of The Baffler, Mark Krotov of n+1, and Sarah Leonard of Lux, hosted by Jess Bergman (C’14) of The Baffler. What makes a magazine little? In their influential 1947 study The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich defined the little magazine as “a magazine designed to print artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses.” Despite their inherent marginality — the “little” in little magazine refers to the size of its imagined audience, not to its staff or budget, though they tend to be small too — these periodicals have remained a more or less unbroken literary tradition since the turn of the 20th century, from Poetry to The Partisan Review to Callaloo, Bitch, and emerging outlets like Parapraxis. Even as many individual magazines have folded, facing difficult financial or cultural headwinds in a contracting media industry, the movement has been rejuvenated again and again by a new generation of writers and editors who, in the words of Offman, Allen, and Ulrich, are “stimulated by some form of discontent” with the status quo.
Jess Bergman is a senior editor at The Baffler and a contributing writer at Jewish Currents. She worked at the Kelly Writers House from 2010 to 2014.
Matthew Shen Goodman is a writer and editor in New York whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, n+1 and other outlets. He is the editor-in-chief of The Baffler, and a contributing editor at Triple Canopy. He is working on two forthcoming books: Lording, a novel about social workers, and American Accomplice, a nonfiction book about Asian American conservatives (both Astra House).
Mark Krotov is the coeditor and publisher of n+1.
Sarah Leonard is the editor-in-chief of Lux and a member of the Dissent editorial board.
Thursday, 10/19
Friday, 10/20
Saturday, 10/21
Sunday, 10/22
Monday, 10/23
Five Minute Film Fest
6:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend
Calling all Penn student filmmakers! Join us at the Writers House for our first ever FIVE MINUTE FILM FEST, a screening of short films (and film excerpts) by Penn students. Prizes will be awarded in several categories, including Best Picture, Best Script, and Best Editing.
Do you want to participate? Please submit your entry by October 18, 2023. Submissions should be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo and submitted to zcard@writitng.upenn.edu. Use “Five Minute Film Submission” as the subject line of your email.
Tuesday, 10/24
Dance and the Poetics of Home
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Dance moves, yes — but where and how does it rest? This iteration of the “Dance and Poetics” series explores “home” as, in the words of philosopher Gaston Bachelard, “the topography of our intimate being.” Join queer artists Emilio Martinez Poppe, MR Stine, and Dahlia Li as an investigation of “home” ensembles their different practices. How do artists furnish the spaces of repose and recovery out of which the momentum for making and change arise? How does the frame of poetry and poetics — a practice of arranging stanzas (the Italian word for “room”) into lyric form — illuminate the threshold between intimate being and dance as embodied public offering?
Wednesday, 10/25
A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF BERNADETTE MAYER
6:00 PM: readings and reminiscences (in person and on YouTube)
hosted by: Laynie Browne
cosponsored by: the Creative Writing Program
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Please join us for a very special evening celebrating the life and work of poet and artist Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022). Mayer's revolutionary writing changed the landscape of contemporary poetry dramatically. Known as a second-generation New York School poet, her contributions to the art include her more than thirty books of poetry and prose, her reinvention of poetic forms such sonnets, letters, and journals, and the creation of several time-based durational writing projects. She is also known for her radical generosity as a teacher and community organizer. Mayer's writing experiments have been inspirational for generations of writers encouraging a focus on process, collaboration and the daily. It's impossible to express all of the ways Bernadette Mayer's work is necessary and enlivening — so please join us to hear from our wonderful speakers including long-time friends, family, and students close to Mayer's work. Our speakers for this event — Julia Bloch, Lee Ann Brown, Brenda Coultas, Philip Good, Julia Levitan, Emily Rush, Max Warsh, and Marie Warsh — will be sharing remembrances, and reading from and discussing Mayer's work, influence, and legacy.
Julia Bloch’s most recent book of poetry is The Sacramento of Desire from Sidebrow Books; her scholarly book on race, gender, lyric, and the long poem, is forthcoming in 2024 from University of Iowa Press. She has been awarded a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation, and a Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is director of the Creative Writing Program.
Lee Ann Brown was born in Saitama, Japan and raised in Charlotte, NC. Her work is known for a range of playful, innovative use of poetic form including song and improvisation. She has published seven collections of poetry, beginning with Polyverse (Sun & Moon Press, 1999), with the most recent being the 1080 press edition of Oh You Nameless and Unnamed Ridgesa collaboration with Bernadette Mayer. Brown teaches poetry at St. John’s University and has been recognized with a Lord Nose Award for Innovative Publishing, a Kathy Acker Award and a Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship from the University of Cambridge. In her 20s she founded Tender Buttons Press, an independent publishing house for experimental feminist poetry beginning with Bernadette Mayer’s Sonnets, and now also curates poetry happenings at Torn Page, a home salon in Chelsea, NYC.
In the mid-90s, Brenda Coultas moved to New York City to work on the staff of the Poetry Project. Her poetry can be found in Bomb and Brooklyn Rail and the anthology Readings in Contemporary Poetry published by the DIA Art Foundation Press. Previous books include two from Coffee House Press: A Handmade Museum, The Marvelous Bones of Time and two from Wesleyan University press: The Tatters, and The Writing of an Hour, an ars poetica, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2022.
Philip Good, the partner of Bernadette Mayer for decades, wrote a collaboration with Mayer entitled Subatomic Mosspublished by Vehicle Editions in 2021. He is also the author of Poets in A Box published by Reality Beach in 2018. He lives in upstate New York near what he calls the Poetry State Forest. His poems can be found in Poetry, Hurricane Review published by Pensacola State College, Infiltration, An Anthology of Innovative Poetry from the Hudson River Valley, and Helix Syntax, the 41st Summer Writing Program Magazine, Naropa University.
Julie Levitan, M.A., is doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, where she explores the intersection of language and mental health through research, clinical work, and advocacy. She earned a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in North Carolina with her cat, Skinky.
Emily Rush is a resident of Philadelphia, PA. They spend their days as a preschool teacher and their nights as a poet/artist/thinker of thoughts. They are most likely happy to be here!
Marie Warsh is a historian, writer, and the co-director of the Estate of Rosemary Mayer. She helped to organize numerous exhibitions of Mayer’s work and has edited several books, including Excerpts from the 1971 Journal of Rosemary Mayer (2016 & 2020), Temporary Monuments: Work by Rosemary Mayer, 1977-1982 with Max Warsh (2018), and The Letters of Bernadette and Rosemary Mayer with Gillian Sneed (2022). From 2005-2022, she worked for the Central Park Conservancy where she was involved in various aspects of the history, preservation, and interpretation of Central Park. She has also written widely on the history of parks, playgrounds, and other landscapes and is the author of Central Park’s Adventure-Style Playgrounds: Renewal of a Midcentury Legacy (2019). She has an MA in Landscape Studies from the Bard Graduate Center and an BA in Art History from Smith College.
Max Warsh is an artist and curator who lives and works in New York City. He received his MFA in Photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2004, and his BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2002. He is Director of the Yeh Art Gallery at St. John’s University in Queens, New York; and is also Co-director of the Estate of Rosemary Mayer and advisor to the Shirley Gorelick Foundation. His artwork has been included in exhibitions at the Queens Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Eduardo Sívori Museum in Buenos Aires, AR and the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, Ireland; and galleries such as CPM, Baltimore; The Pit, Los Angeles; Longhouse Projects, New York; New Capital, Chicago; Shoot the Lobster, New York and others.
Thursday, 10/26
Kleenex/LILIPUT: A Punk Rock Journey with Grace Ambrose
6:00 PM in person and on YouTube
hosted by: Anthony DeCurtis
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a conversation with Grace Ambrose (C’11), editor of Kleenex/LiLiPUT (Thrilling Living), a lavishly illustrated English-language edition of Marlene Marder’s German-language diary documenting her time in Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Zurich’s first all-female punk band, and most important musical export of any gender or genre. Neither memoir nor scrapbook, but something defiantly in the middle, Kleenex/LiLiPUT is a compelling example of what it looks like to document one’s own life, and all the insights and messiness that entails. This project is an interpretation, a translation, a republication, an attempt to expand and enhance Marlene’s unruly original. The book recounts touring, recording, and music business dealings, all from the perspective of Marder, the band’s guitarist. It is an important document of what it was like to participate in the burgeoning music industry, just as punk was taking off.
Grace Ambrose(C'11) is a writer and editor based in Kansas City, MO. 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 book Kleenex/LiLiPUT about the seminal Swiss band of the same name.
Friday, 10/27
Art in the Lab Workshop
12:00 PM to 2:00 PM in person
hosted by: Alison Dell
sponsored by: the Brodsky Gallery
rsvp: email wh@writing.upenn.edu spots are limited
Make art and explore the microscopic world with artist Alison Dell (@artinthelab) creating drawings based on scientific images. This two-hour workshop will interleave microscope gazing with drawing and writing inspired by the fall season. We will work through a series of short drawing and writing prompts and create works by examining things that have fallen apart, regenerated, or ossified. Participants of all experience levels are welcome. Samples and art supplies are provided.
Saturday, 10/28
Sunday, 10/29
Monday, 10/30
LIVE at the Writers House
a monthly radio show produced in collaboration with WXPN
6:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
LIVE at the Writers House is a long-standing collaboration of the people of the Kelly Writers House and of WXPN (88.5 FM). Six times annually between September and April, the Writers House records a one-hour show of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art for broadcast by WXPN. LIVE at the Writers House is edited by Zach Carduner and produced by Alli Katz. The show is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc.