November 2024
Friday, 11/1
Saturday, 11/2
Sunday, 11/3
Monday, 11/4
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a meeting of the Writers House Planning Committee (also known as "the Hub") — the core group of engaged students, staff, faculty, and volunteers who help make things happen at Writers House. Anyone is welcome to become a Hub member by participating in Hub activities and helping out. Members of the Hub plan programs, share ideas, and discuss upcoming projects.
Tuesday, 11/5
Wednesday, 11/6
A reading by Rae Armantrout
Sussman Poetry Program
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Writing for the Poetry Foundation, David Woo says that Rae Armantrout’s recent book Finalists (Wesleyan 2022) “emanates the radiant astonishment of living thought.” Charles Bernstein says, “Her sheer, often hilarious, ingenuity is an aesthetic triumph.” Armantrout’s book, Conjure, was named one of the ten “best books” of 2020 by Library Journal. Her 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. Her other books with Wesleyan include Partly: New and Selected Poems, Just Saying, Money Shot and Versed. In 2010 Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and The National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2007 she received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies and journals including Poetry, Conjunctions, Lana Turner, The Nation, The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, Bomb, Harpers, The Paris Review, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology, and The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. Retired from UC San Diego where she was professor of poetry and poetics, she is the current judge of the Yale Younger Poets Prize.
Thursday, 11/7
Don Mee Choi: a reading and conversation
Liu Program
6:00 PM in person
co-sponsored by: The Creative Writing Program
hosted by: Jo Park
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of the KOR-US trilogy: Mirror Nation (Wave Books, 2024), the National Book Award winning collection DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), and Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016). She is a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations, as well as the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. Her translation of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry collection, Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
Friday, 11/8
Saturday, 11/9
Sunday, 11/10
Monday, 11/11
Tuesday, 11/12
Poem Talk: Tyrone Williams (1954-2024)
Featuring Billy Joe Harris, Erica Hunt, Aldon Nielsen, and Simone White, with host Al Filreis
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person (lunch will be served)
Hosted by KWH Faculty Director Al Filreis, the PoemTalk podcast features a lively roundtable discussion of poetry in the PennSound archive. Please join us in the Arts Café for a special episode of PoemTalk held in memory and celebration of Tyrone Williams (1954-2024), a scholar, poet, and dear friend of the Kelly Writers House. Billy Joe Harris, Erica Hunt, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, and Simone White will join Al Filreis for a discussion of Tyrone’s poem “Charon on the Potomac.” All are welcome! Lunch will be served.
A reading in celebration of Tyrone Williams (1954–2024)
Featuring Billy Joe Harris, Erica Hunt, and Aldon Lynn Nielsen, with host Al Filreis
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Hosted by KWH Faculty Director Al Filreis, we will gather for a reading in celebration of Tyrone Williams (1954-2024), a scholar, poet, and dear friend of the Kelly Writers House. Williams’s work draws on a variety of sources to challenge and investigate language, history, and race. In an interview Williams once noted, “I don’t ‘revere’ the English language but I use it and, on occasion, abuse it.” "Before his untimely death,” Al Filreis writes, "Tyrone was a frequent visitor to the Writers House. We miss him terribly and look forward to this opportunity to memorialize him through his own poetry and our recollections of his brilliance and generosity.” Billy Joe Harris, Erica Hunt, and Aldon Lynn Nielsen will read selections from Tyrone’s work and offer remembrances and remarks. All are welcome!
Wednesday, 11/13
Karen Tumulty & Dick Polman in conversation
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Karen Tumulty is an associate editor and political columnist for the Washington Post. In her previous role as a national political correspondent for the newspaper, she received the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine, where she had held the same title. During her more than 15 years at Time, Tumulty wrote or co-wrote more than three dozen cover stories. She also held positions with Time as congressional correspondent and White House correspondent. Before joining Time in 1994, Tumulty spent 14 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she reported on Congress, business, energy and economics from Los Angeles, New York and D.C. Tumulty is a native of San Antonio. She earned a BA in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:00 PM 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, 11/14
Secret Symbiosis: Failure and Success in Arts and Entertainment
RealArts@Penn event with media executive Robert Sharenow
5:30 PM in person
hosted by: Anthony DeCurtis
sponsored by: Creative Ventures
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Robert Sharenow is a leading creative media executive, as well as an award-winning writer and producer. Sharenow currently serves as President of Programming for A+E Networks, overseeing all creative development and production for their brands, including A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, A&E Indie Films, and Home.Made.Nation. Under his creative leadership, his teams have won many Prime Time and News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, and received an Academy Award and several Oscar nominations. His teams have developed industry leading series in nearly every genre, including Emmy-winners, Intervention and Born This Way; unscripted hits such as Storage Wars and Dance Moms; top-rated TV movies, Flowers in the Attic (Heather Graham, Ellen Burstyn) and Bonnie & Clyde (Emile Hirsh, William Hurt); documentary events such as the Peabody-Award-winning Surviving R. Kelly; drama series, YOU (EP Greg Berlanti) and Peabody Award-winning, UnReal (EP Marti Noxin); and the upcoming WWII with Tom Hanks and Kevin Costner’s The West. As a writer/producer, his TV credits include the History Channel series, This Week in History, Michael Moore’s Emmy-award-winning, TV Nation, and the PBS children’s series, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. He is the author of three novels, including The Berlin Boxing Club, which was awarded the Sydney Taylor Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries and has been published internationally in several languages. As a musician he was a co-writer on They Might Be Giants Grammy-winning children’s record, Here Come the 1,2,3s, and he co-created and released two albums with William Shatner, Bill (with the Jonas Brothers label for Universal Music), and So Fragile, So Blue (a collaboration with Ben Folds and the National Symphony Orchestra). Sharenow received his B.A. from Brandeis University and an M.A from New York University, where he held a fellowship in the American Studies Department. His greatest unfulfilled creative dream was to launch his own newspaper comic strip.
Friday, 11/15
Saturday, 11/16
Homecoming Open House
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Renew your acquaintance with the Kelly Writers House or get to know this lively and innovative home for writers of all ages and genres. Visit our Open House to join members of the KWH community for informal conversation, coffee, and light refreshments. Advanced registration is not required, but we'd love to hear from you!
Emerging Journalists: On Culture Writing
Povich Journalism Program
4:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a conversation about “culture writing” — writing about music, movies, books, TV, gaming, art, and other modes of cultural expression — with four early-career alumni journalists. Moderated by Meg Gladieux (C'23, GED’24), the 2024-2025 KWH Junior Fellows Prize winner, panelists will include Beatrice Forman (C'22), a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer; Taylor Hosking (C'17), a freelance culture journalist and podcast producer; Samuel Yellowhorse Kesler (C'20), an assistant producer at Planet Money; and Amanda Silberling (C'18), a senior reporter at TechCrunch.
Beatrice Forman is a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and a contributor to Taylor Swift, a retrospective on the pop star published by Hearst earlier this year. At The Inquirer, Beatrice specializes in coverage of her three favorite things: How people build community on the internet, Philly's pop culture, and — yes — Taylor. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022, where she was editor-in-chief of 34th Street Magazine. Beatrice has reported on memes for Vox and Cosmo and was previously a deputy editor at Billy Penn and WHYY. In her spare time, Beatrice is an at-large director for the Society of Professional Journalists, coordinates the national journalism collaborative Democracy Day, and spoils Mango, the West Philly stray cat she rescued.
Taylor Hosking is a culture journalist and producer. At Penn she started the DP's first culture podcast called In the Cut. She came into national media as a writer in The Atlantic's editorial fellowship program followed by becoming a culture staff writer at VICE covering entertainment and pop culture. Then she went into producing culture podcast talk shows and audio documentaries for places like Netflix, HBO, SONY, NPR and Audible. She's sold music culture related podcast documentaries to NPR and HBO, including an HBO podcast Insecure Interludes about the music culture impact of Insecure's soundtrack. Now, she develops and creates both podcasts and films as a freelance producer through her production company, 93rd Street Media, in New York City.
Samuel Yellowhorse Kesler is an Assistant Producer at Planet Money based in Philadelphia. He studied English at the University of Pennsylvania. While in school, he wrote for the Daily Pennsylvanian , The Key from WXPN, 34th Street Magazine, the Penn Gazette, and the WQHS Radio Blog. He was Programming Assistant Intern at the World Cafe from WXPN for three years, and interned with NPR’s Ask Me Another in 2020. He was also Lead Producer for the podcast Side Effects: A COVID-19 Diary, and a News Assistant at NPR’s All Things Considered. He was also the inaugural Code Switch Fellow in 2021.
Amanda Silberling is a senior reporter at TechCrunch, covering the intersection of technology and culture. Through her writing, she analyzes the inner workings of big tech and social platforms to explain how these powers shape our lives, from entertainment to politics. Her work has also appeared on NPR, MTV, Business Insider, Polygon and the Kenyon Review. Alongside sci-fi writer/attorney Isabel J. Kim (C'18), she is the co-host and co-creator of the internet culture podcast Wow if True, which is a Multitude member show.
(moderator) Meg Gladieux is an educator and freelance writer. She currently works at Healthy NewsWorks, a non-profit which teaches journalism in Philadelphia-area schools, and as an assistant to author and journalist Stephen Fried. At Penn, she co-founded The Woodlands Magazine and was a features writer and editor at 34th Street Magazine. She is the 2024-2025 Junior Fellows Prize winner at the Kelly Writers House.
Sunday, 11/17
Monday, 11/18
Tuesday, 11/19
Chef to Chef
Shaina Loew-Banayan of Cafe Mutton in conversation with Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Shaina Loew-Banayan is the chef and owner of Cafe Mutton in Hudson, NY. They have been a nominee and a finalist in the James Beard Awards Best Chef: New York category in 2023 and 2022 respectively. Bon Appétit magazine named Cafe Mutton one of the Ten Best New Restaurants in 2022, and the New York Times named Cafe Mutton one of the 50 Best Restaurants in America in 2022.
Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune restaurant in New York's East Village and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. Hamilton received an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, GQ, Bon Appétit, Saveur, House Beautiful, and Food & Wine. Her work has been anthologized in eight volumes of Best Food Writing and she most recently was a monthly Eat columnist at the New York Times Magazine. She has appeared on television on numerous shows, winning an Emmy for her season of Netflix's "Mind of a Chef." She has won four James Beard Foundation Awards, including for Best Chef NYC, and Outstanding Chef in the country. Hamilton teaches in Penn's Creative Writing Program.
NOVELIST GARY SHTEYNGART
Friedman Fiction Program
5:00 PM: reception
6:00 PM: reading and conversation
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe
Author of the critically acclaimed knockout novels The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and Super Sad True Love Story, Russian-born Gary Shteyngart has risen to the top of the fiction world. His latest novel, Our Country Friends, which follows a group of friends isolating together for six months during the pandemic, is a powerful story about friendship. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Little Failure, is a candid, witty, and deeply poignant account of his life so far. He shares his American immigrant experience, moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado. Off the page, Shteyngart is a masterful storyteller recounting his life as a Lenin-loving, ratty-fur-overcoat-wearing child to his anxiety-attack-prone twenties in New York. As a speaker, Shteyngart explores what it means to be an immigrant, a son, an American, a grown-up, and a writer. He was named a Granta Best Young American Novelist and a New Yorker “Best Writer Under 40.” For more information, visit www.prhspeakers.com/speaker/gary-shteyngart.
Wednesday, 11/20
What is a Citizen?
6:00 PM in person
sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Youth voting activists from Penn and West Philly High will recite their own monologues on what it means to be a citizen today. Food served and everyone (especially families and friends!) extremely welcome.
Thursday, 11/21
Ross Gay: a poetry reading
Creative Writing Program
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Photo credit: Natasha Komoda
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays— The Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy was released in 2022, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023.