January 2023
Sunday, 1/1
Monday, 1/2
Tuesday, 1/3
Wednesday, 1/4
Thursday, 1/5
Friday, 1/6
Saturday, 1/7
Sunday, 1/8
Monday, 1/9
Tuesday, 1/10
Wednesday, 1/11
Thursday, 1/12
Friday, 1/13
Saturday, 1/14
Sunday, 1/15
Monday, 1/16
Tuesday, 1/17
Wednesday, 1/18
Thursday, 1/19
Taije Silverman: A Poetry Reading
6:00 PM (ET) in person and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program
The Creative Writing Program presents a reading and book launch for Taije Silverman, who will read from Now You Can Join the Others, published recently by LSU Press. Natasha Trethewey has written that "The poems... are heartbreaking in their beauty, the depths of emotion seemingly endless, yet elegantly contained in the poet’s precise language, her haunting imagery. Silverman confronts loss with remarkable tenderness." With special guest Denise Brown of Lincoln University, performing original songs.
Taije Silverman is the author of two books of poetry, Houses Are Fields, published in 2009, and Now You Can Join the Others, out in 2022. Her Italian translations of the Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli (published in 2019), were shortlisted for the John Florio Prize. Silverman's poems have been in Best American Poetry, the Kenyon Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and on "The Slowdown" with Tracy K. Smith. Honors include a Fulbright, residencies from MacDowell and Yaddo, the W.K. Rose Felllowship, and the Anne Halley Prize for best poem in The Massachusetts Review. She teaches translation and poetry at Penn and is the faculty advisor for DoubleSpeak.
Friday, 1/20
Mindful Painting Session
Penn Arts and Wellness and the Brodsky Gallery
12:00 PM - 4:30 PM in person
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Join us for a mindful painting session, hosted as a collaboration between Penn Art and Wellness and the Brodsky Gallery. Participants will paint on a number of large, communal canvases. No rules apply! Make your own unique contribution to the canvas, or build upon what others add. Let the brush guide you in whichever direction your creative mind takes. The goal is to de-stress and use the process of art-making as a form of relaxation. You may join or all or part of the session. There will be a brief guided meditation midway through the event.
Penn Art and Wellness is an all-inclusive, non-judgmental student group at the University of Pennsylvania where students participate in collaborative painting sessions. Our club facilitates art therapy, meditation, and special wellness events to promote mental health at Penn. We host weekly sessions where members are given access to art supplies provided by the club. There are also larger, monthly events in which non-members can participate. Additionally, Art and Wellness is introducing a community service component where Penn students will have the opportunity to mentor students in West Philadelphia in varying mediums of art.
Saturday, 1/21
Sunday, 1/22
Monday, 1/23
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:00 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, 1/24
Suppose An Eyes presents: New poems for the new year
6:00 PM (ET) on YouTube
Watch: here
Join us on YouTube for a reading by members of Suppose an Eyes, a poetry workshop sponsored by the Kelly Writers House. The workshop takes its name from a "portrait" in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. Suppose An Eyes has two main goals: to provide a supportive place for poets to share and improve their writing and to organize readings where poets can present their work to the public. The group was founded in 1999 and is one of the longest running poetry workshops in the Philly area. The group has a diverse membership with poets of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds.
Wednesday, 1/25
Bookmaking and bookbinding workshop
presented by Bryn Ziegler and The Soapbox
6:00 PM (ET) in person at the Kelly Writers House
Supported by: Creative Ventures
REGISTER HERE to attend
Learn all about bookmaking and bookbinding techniques with The Soapbox, a West Philadelphia-based community print shop and zine library. Soapbox artist Bryn Ziegler will lead participants in using the crisscross binding technique to make their own books. Materials will be provided. Spots are limited, so please register here to attend the event.
Bryn Ziegler is a book and comic artist local to Philadelphia. She moved from Los Angeles in 2021 to pursue an MFA in Book Arts and Print at University of the Arts. Her work was recently included in the National Association of Hand Papermakers’ collegiate triennial show, which will be traveling until 2024, and the 2022 Philadelphia Center for the Book exhibition A New Normal. Her books can be found in Swarthmore Libraries Special Collections, Penn’s Kelly Writers House, The Philadelphia Free Library Print and Picture Collection, and the UArts Library Special Collections. Bryn specializes in small, intimate books and draws on the visual language of comics in her work. She loves unconventional book structures and unconventional narrative structures equally.
Thursday, 1/26
Mind of Winter
5:00 PM (ET) in person
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
In January of every year, the Writers House Planning Committee embraces the post-holiday doldrums with a celebration of winter's comforts, inspired by Wallace Stevens's chilly poem, "The Snow Man." We gather here at the Writers House, stoke a big fire in the parlor, simmer several big pots of soups and stews, and share our favorite winter-themed readings with one another. Let it snow!
Friday, 1/27
Saturday, 1/28
Sunday, 1/29
Monday, 1/30
LIVE at the Writers House
WXPN radio show
6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
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" is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc and is produced by Alli Katz.