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All events take place at the Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia (U of P).
Wednesday, 3/1
- 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 795.401 with Bob Perelman (perelman@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 155.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 010.001 with Elizabeth Scanlon
- 5:30-7:30 PM in Room 209: Film 009.601: Hitchcock with Valerie Ross (vross@writing.upenn.edu)
- 6-7:30 PM in Room 202: The American Literature seminar. For more information, please contact Jarrett Anthony (janthon2@dept.english.upenn.edu).
- 7:30 PM in Room 209: Reality Writes Meeting; for more information, contact Mary Hale Meyer (mhmeyer65@earthlink.net).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Thursday, 3/2
- 1:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: Julie Patton reads and performs. A
special presentation affiliated with Erica Hunt's jazz poetry and poetics
class. (Erica Hunt is this year's CPCW Fellow in Poetics and Poetic
Practice.)
Julie Patton is the author of Teething on Type (Rodent Press, 1995). She has published poems in Transfer, Tribes ,and other magazines, and in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Collier Books, 1994). Her articles and essays appear in Educating the Imagination: Essays & Ideas for Teachers & Writers (T&W, 1994), and in Teachers & Writers. In 1993 she received the New York City Arts in Education Sustained Achievement Award in Literary Arts. She has performed her work at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, the Whitney Museum, Houston's Center for Art and Performance, and Cleveland Public Theatre's International Sonic Disturbance Festival.To hear a recording of this program in mp3 format, click here.
- 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A Poetry Reading with Damon Krukowski of the bands Galaxie 500, and Damon and
Naomi, and publisher of Exact Change Books. Presented as part of Kenneth Goldsmith's 'Writing and Culture' class.
Damon Krukowski is one half of the influential duo "Damon and Naomi" and a former member of the band Galaxie 500. He and Naomi are the editor/publishers of the independent press Exact Change Books, which has released the writings of Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, John Cage, and other creative luminaries. Damon is a poet in his own right and will read from his new book "The Memory Theater Burned" with a Q and A to follow. For more information on Damon and Naomi visit their website at http://www.damonandnaomi.com
"Damon Krukowski weaves found text into masterful textures. Poems that read like the entries of an encyclopedia questioning itself. Although sometimes ironic the overriding quality of is an archaic tongue, an archaism that sounds fresh." --Marc Lowenthal, The Boston Book Review
Listen to a recording of this reading on Krukowski's PennSound author page
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 111.302 with Erica Hunt
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 112.302 with Diane McKinney-Whetstone (whetstones@comcast.net)
- 4:30-6:00 PM in room 202: A meeting of The Moderns. For more information, contact Benjy Kahan at (kahan@sas.upenn.edu).
- 8:00 PM in Room 202: Compass meeting. For more information, contact Ari Paul (apaul@sas.upenn.edu).
- 8:00 PM in Room 209: In Words meeting. For more information, contact Grant Potts (gpotts@ccat.sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Friday, 3/3
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Saturday, 3/4
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Sunday, 3/5
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Monday, 3/6
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Tuesday, 3/7
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Wednesday, 3/8
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
- 7:00 PM in Room 202: STEAK, a fiction group. For more information, please contact MoMoody (momoody@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Thursday, 3/9
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Friday, 3/10
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Saturday, 3/11
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Sunday, 3/12
- Writers House closed for Spring Break.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Monday, 3/13
- 12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A Lunch Program with Dick Polman. To RSVP, please email wh@writing.upenn.edu
Dick Polman is the Philadelphia Inquirer's national political reporter, and has covered the presidential campaign since 1992. In addition to political writing, he has served as the Inquirer's London foreign correspondent, their baseball writer covering the Philadelphia Phillies, their general-assignment writer in the features section, and a writer for their Sunday magazine. Polman has been interviewed in Columbia Journalism Review, and appeared on PBS's "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" and CNN's "American Morning." Polman is teaching "Advanced Journalistic Writing" at the University of Pennsylvania in the Spring semester.
- 6:00 PM: a program with Tom Raworth, hosted by Charles Bernstein.
Tom Raworth is, for those looking to the future of British poetry,
the shining light on the highway of the real and no-way of the
neither/nors. As those who come today will see, he is one of the most
astonishing -- and fast paced -- readers in the West. Raworth (b. 1938),
in addition to a career that includes being the editor of Outburst
magazine, founder of the Goliard Press, and an artist whose shows have
been seen in galleries in Europe and America, is a prolific poet, with
over forty books and pamphlets published since 1966. Born in London, he
has travelled widely and lived in both the USA and Mexico before returning
to Britain, settling in Cambridge, where he has been Poet in Residence to
Kings College, Cambridge. His Collected Poems was published by
Caracanet in 2003.
This program was recorded and is available through PENNsound
left to right: Erin Gautsche, Bob Perelman, Tom RaworthMore info at http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/raworth/.
- 2:00-3:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: English 274.301 with Al Filreis (afilreis@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 158.301 with Richard Polman
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 112.301 with Karen Rile (krile@writing.upenn.edu)
- 5:20-7:20 in Room 202: Penn & Pencil Club, a writing workshop for Penn and Health Systems staff; For more information, email John Shea at (john.shea@uphs.upenn.edu).
- 6:00 PM in Room 209: 34th Street Poets Meeting. For more information, please contact Cindy Savet (savettc@comcast.net).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Tuesday, 3/14
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 115.301 with Max Apple (maxapple@english.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 145.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 6-8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes poetry group; for more information, email Pat Green at (patgreen@vet.upenn.edu).
- 7:30 PM in Room 202: Radium, a fiction group. For more information, please contact Phil Sandick (psandick@writing.upenn.edu).
- 9:00 PM in Room 202: Penn Review Art Committee; for more information, email Ayaka Iwata (ayakaji@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Wednesday, 3/15
- 5:00 - 7:30 in Room 202: Story Structure in Joyce's Araby, a fiction workshop with Adam Sexton.
Space is limited! Please RSVP to wh@writing.upenn.edu.
The symbolism and themes of James Joyce's short story “Araby” (from Dubliners) have been much remarked upon. Less appreciated are the structural elements that draw readers into and through the story. We may or may not know what Araby”means, but how does it work? Participants in this seminar/workshop will study Joyce's use of classic story structure (the same used in the Odyssey, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, and most of the other works in the Western canon), with the intent of applying these lessons to our own fiction.
Required reading prior to the seminar: “Araby” by James Joyce
Adam Sexton teaches literature and creative writing at NYU and expository writing at Parsons School of Design. His books include Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway and Other Greats (McGraw-Hill, 2005) and Love Stories (Citadel, 2003). His writing has been published in the New York Times, the Village Voice, and the Boston Phoenix, and he has read from his work or appeared on panels at Yale University, NYU, and SUNY Binghamton. Sexton received his B.A. in English from Penn and his M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the School of the Arts at Columbia University.
- 8 PM in the Arts Cafe: SPEAKEASY: Poetry, Prose, Anything Goes!
Open-Mic night at the Writers House. Come to perform or come to listen!
- 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 795.401 with Bob Perelman (perelman@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 155.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 010.001 with Elizabeth Scanlon
- 5:30-7:30 PM in Room 209: Film 009.601: Hitchcock with Valerie Ross (vross@writing.upenn.edu)
- 7:30 PM in Room 209: Reality Writes Meeting; for more information, contact Mary Hale Meyer (mhmeyer65@earthlink.net).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Thursday, 3/16
- 5:00 PM: Writers House Planning Committee ("Hub") Meeting and Gathering. (For more information about the "hub" or to RSVP, write to wh@writing.upenn.edu.)
- 6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: Word.Doc meeting
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 111.302 with Erica Hunt
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 112.302 with Diane McKinney-Whetstone (whetstones@comcast.net)
- 8:00 PM in Room 202: Compass meeting. For more information, contact Ari Paul (apaul@sas.upenn.edu).
- 8:00 PM in Room 209: In Words meeting. For more information, contact Grant Potts (gpotts@ccat.sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Friday, 3/17
- 1:00 - 3:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A Journalism Workshop in collaboration with the Daily
Pennsylvanian with Michael Vitez. For more information, contact Jeff Greenwald (jbg@sas.upenn.edu). Space is very limited! RSVP required to
wh@writing.upenn.edu.
Michael Vitez has been a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1985. He has covered a wide range of assignments, including political conventions, the World Series, elections in Haiti, the funeral of Princes Diana, and has written a twice-weekly column about ordinary people and the extraordinary things they do. He was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University in 2000, teaching narrative writing, and was a Michigan Journalism Fellow in 1994-95. He has just completed a book, Rocky Stories, Tales of Love, Hope and Happiness from America's Most Famous Steps, (Paul Dry Books, 2006), co-authored with Inquirer photographer Tom Gralish, about people from all over the nation and world who still come to the Philadelphia Museum of Art every day to run the steps like Rocky Balboa. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for a series of narratives he wrote about five individuals and the medical choices they faced, with their families, at the end of their lives. He is currently teaching in Penn's Creative Writing Program.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Saturday, 3/18
- 1:00-3:00 PM throughout the House: Write On! with students from the Penn Alexander School
Write On! brings eighth graders from the Penn Alexander School to the Writers House on Saturday afternoons to work with Penn undergraduate volunteers on creative writing skills and activities. For more information contact Jamie Alter (jlalter@sas.upenn.edu) or Danielle Rosenblatt (dmrosenb@sas.upenn.edu).
- 12-5:00 PM: Publications Room reserved for First Call.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Sunday, 3/19
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Monday, 3/20
- 6:30 PM: The Kelly Writers House Fellows Program presents novelist Cynthia Ozick. RSVP only. EVENT FULL. WE WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTING RSVPS FOR THIS EVENT. Click here for more information about this event and all Writers House Fellows programs.
- 2:00-3:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: English 274.301 with Al Filreis (afilreis@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 158.301 with Richard Polman
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 112.301 with Karen Rile (krile@writing.upenn.edu)
- 6:00 PM in Room 209: 34th Street Poets Meeting. For more information, please contact Cindy Savet (savettc@comcast.net).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Tuesday, 3/21
- 10:00 AM: The Kelly Writers House Fellows Program presents novelist Cynthia Ozick--brunch and interview led by Al Filreis. RSVP only. EVENT FULL. WE WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTING RSVPs TO THIS EVENT. Click here for more information about this event and all Writers House Fellows programs.
- 6:00 PM: Mental Health Writing Workshop with Philadelphia Weekly Columnist Liz Spikol. To
RSVP, please email wh@writing.upenn.edu.
In honor of National Mental Health Week, This writing workshop will be a forum to write about topics related to mental health. The facilitator will be Liz Spikol, a local writer for the Philadelphia Weekly and the author of the blog, The Trouble with Spikol, in which the author openly discusses her mental health problems. During the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to write about mental health related topics presented by Ms. Spikol and then discuss them with her and the group. Dinner and other refreshments will be provided.
Liz Spikol was born and raised in Center City, Philadelphia. She went to Friends Select School, a Quaker high school, and then to Oberlin College, where she graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing (poetry and translation). She received her Master's degree in Comparative Literature (Spanish and translation) at University of Texas at Austin.
Liz started working at Philadelphia Weekly in 1998. Her writing for that publication has gleaned numerous honors, including awards from the Society for Professional Journalists and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association (PNA). She won the award for Best First Person Account of Mental Illness from the National Mental Health Association; a publication award from the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society; and an Access Achievement Award from the Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on People With Disabilties. She writes a blog about her experiences with mental illness (Biographical information from Liz Spikol's website)
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 115.301 with Max Apple (maxapple@english.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 145.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 4:30-6:00 PM in Room 202: Proposals Hublet meeting. For more information, please contact Erin Gautsche (gautsche@writing.upenn.edu).
- 6-7:30 PM in Room 209: The American Literature seminar. For more information, please contact Jarrett Anthony (janthon2@dept.english.upenn.edu).
- 9:00 PM in Room 202: Penn Review Art Committee; for more information, email Ayaka Iwata (ayakaji@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Wednesday, 3/22
- 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A lecture demonstration: Extempo Calypso and Picong Lyrics, featuring Trinidadian
Calypso artists Hollis "Chalkdust" Liverpool and Kalvin "The Mighty Duke" Pope. Co-sponsored by The Center for Africana Studies and Penn's Department of Music.
Dr. Hollis Liverpool is a lecturer at the University of the West Indies and Director of the Carnival Institute of Trinidad and Tobago. Liverpool is also a calypso singer, known as "Chalkdust." He has written countless articles and four books on calypso music and carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. He has won the Calypso Monarch title in Trinidad and Tobago five times; World Calypso King in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands eight times; and Calypso King of the World in New York on the two occasions the competition was held. During his visit at Penn, Liverpool will deliver lectures on the socio-cultural history of Calypso music and picong - tempo lyrics and perform a Calypso concert with musicians Duke and members of the infamous McIntosh family.
The Mighty Duke (Kevin Pope) is an accomplished calypsonian of Chalkdust's generation.
This calypso co-sponsorship between The Kelly Writers House, The Center for Africana Studies, and the Department of Music will continue throughout the week - catch Chalkdust and The Mighty Duke also on Thursday, March 24th, at 5:00 PM for a lecture on the social history of calypso (in the Ben Franklin Room of Houston Hall), and later that night at 7:00 PM for a concert featuring a Trinidadian band led by the New York based musician, Freddie McIntosh (at The Rotunda).
Listen to a recording of the event.
- 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 795.401 with Bob Perelman (perelman@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 155.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 010.001 with Elizabeth Scanlon
- 5:30-7:30 PM in Room 209: Film 009.601: Hitchcock with Valerie Ross (vross@writing.upenn.edu)
- 9:00 PM in Room 209: Pennumbra, a science fiction/fantasy writing group for Penn students. For more information, please contact Lucy Ho (ratofsumatra@gmail.com).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Thursday, 3/23
- 6:00 PM: A conversation with Penn alumnus and former Esquire
editor Lee Eisenberg. Please RSVP to wh@writing.upenn.edu to reserve a seat.
Penn alumnus Lee Eisenberg spent seventeen years at Esquire, where he served as editor-in-chief through the 1980s. In 1983, he conceived and commissioned the magazine's widely admired Fiftieth Anniversary issues, including "50 Who Made the Difference," which received a National Magazine Award. In 1995, Eisenberg was hired to oversee creative development at TIME magazine. He helped launch TIME for Kids, a newsmagazine for children, and was involved with many of TIME's initial online activities. He also worked on a number of special issues and projects, including a two-year TIME-CBS News collaboration known as The TIME 100, which culminated with the selection of TIME's Person of the Century. In 1999, Eisenberg was appointed Executive Vice President and Creative Director at Lands' End, where he oversaw all creative and marketing activities. In 2003, he was promoted to the company's Office of the President, and served as Chief Creative and Administrative Officer. He resigned in March 2004 to begin work on The Number. Eisenberg has written numerous magazine articles and columns, as well as several books. Titles include The Ultimate Fishing Book (Houghton Mifflin,) Atlantic City: 100 Years of Ocean Madness (Clarkson Potter,) and Breaking Eighty (Hyperion Press.) His work has appeared in Fortune, Money, and the New York Times, among many other publications.
About Lee Eisenberg's newest book, a New York Times bestseller: The often avoided, anxiety-riddled discussion about financial planning for a secure and fulfilling future has been given a new starting point in THE NUMBER: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life by Lee Eisenberg (Free Press; January 10, 2006). The buzz of professionals and financial industry insiders everywhere, the Number represents the amount of money and resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by imaginative and visionary advice, Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living, and to sufficiently enable their enduring aspirations for years to come. For much more about this book, see http://www.thenumberbook.com/.
This program was recorded; to hear a recording in mp3 format, please click here.
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 111.302 with Erica Hunt
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 112.302 with Diane McKinney-Whetstone (whetstones@comcast.net)
- 4:30-6:00 PM in room 202: A meeting of The Moderns. For more information, contact Benjy Kahan at (kahan@sas.upenn.edu).
- 8:00 PM in Room 202: Compass meeting. For more information, contact Ari Paul (apaul@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Friday, 3/24
- 3:00 - 5:00 PM throughout the House: Write On! with students from the Lea Elementary School
Write On! brings eighth graders from the Lea Elementary School to the Writers House on Friday afternoons to work with Penn undergraduate volunteers on creative writing skills and activities. For more information contact Elaine Braithwaite (ebraithw@sas.upenn.edu) or Paul Townsend (ptownsen@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Saturday, 3/25
- 12:00-2:00 PM in the Dining Room and Arts Cafe: Write On! Lea School End of Year Celebration!!
Join us as we celebrate the end of another year of Write On! with the Lea Elementary School -- all are welcome!
- 1:00-3:00 PM throughout the House: Write On! with students from the Penn Alexander School
Write On! brings eighth graders from the Penn Alexander School to the Writers House on Saturday afternoons to work with Penn undergraduate volunteers on creative writing skills and activities. For more information contact Jamie Alter (jlalter@sas.upenn.edu) or Danielle Rosenblatt (dmrosenb@sas.upenn.edu).
- 12-5:00 PM: Publications Room reserved for First Call.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Sunday, 3/26
- 1:00-3:00 PM in the Dining Room and Arts Cafe: Write On! Penn Alexander End of Year Celebration!
Join us as we celebrate the first-ever Write On! collaboration with students from the Penn Alexander School. All are welcome!
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Monday, 3/27
- 8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: LIVE at the Writers House tapes, featuring 2005 Leeway Foundation grant winners
Suzanne Povse, Taina Asili, Ham'diya Mu, Patience Rage, Tamika Jones-Nwalipenga, and
musical guest Joshua Marcus
Suzanne Povse is completing a manuscript that presents her experiences as a woman becoming a skilled worker in a traditionally all-male blue-collar occupation, working as the only woman as tool and die maker for almost 30 years. Says Suzanne, "During my twenty-eight years as a blue collar woman working in a nontraditional skilled labor job, I've worked as a machine operator, an apprentice, a journeyman tool and die and model maker, and presently, a helicopter transmission mechanic. I've stood in unemployment lines and walked picket lines. I've worked in union shops and in small job-shops where the only benefit was free coffee. Except for a brief period during my first year, I have been the only female in the shops I’ve worked in." Her stories focus on how she made the workplace human for herself without alienating the men she worked with, stories of how she learned to change the workplace. Suzanne writes for herself, other women like her who were amongst the first generation of women after WWII to work on the machine shop floor, as well as for the women who are just now entering or thinking of entering the profession. Suzanne's writings and sharing of her work puts forth a voice for blue-collar women that claims the importance and legitimacy of their work, allowing women to define themselves.
Taína Asili, while completing her book Esclavos to Sun Bearers: Poetry, Recipes, Artwork and Prayers for the Health and Healing of the Boricua Nation, has visited with and interviewed her mentor and Taino community leader, Naniki Reyes-Ocasio at the Caney 5th World Learning Center in Puerto Rico. During this trip Ms. Asili also interviewed former Puerto Rican political prisoner, healer and artist, Dyclia Pagan, which combined with her visit to Ms. Reyes-Ocasio has assisted in her continued study of ancestral wisdom about food, herbs, nature, and the arts as mediums for healing to resist colonized ideas of culture and identity that still exist.
Ham'diya Mu works with the Human Rights Coalition, a prisoner family and ex-prisoner group working to change the prison system, to host a free all-ages monthly spoken word event, Poems Not Prisons, at the A-Space in West Philadelphia. As a spoken word poet and host of the event, she created a space where other people can come and share poems about the prison industrial complex and how it effects the lives of young people, poor people, and people of color, as well as sharing her own experiences of having a son and godson in prison. Working with the HRC, this event provides an artistic way to voice the issues of families separated by incarceration and the negative effect prisons have on our society in general.
Patience Rage was invited by a group of women into their homes in North Philadelphia to help coach them through the telling and recording their incest stories. The artistic work of this project is to create a safe space to coach incest survivors as they tell their own stories and listen to each other's stories, with the hope that these stories will then have a life of their own, and be told or performed in the community. Her own story, “My First Kiss serves as an example for the group, also allowing Patience to polish this story through the process. The women are empowered by telling their stories, because it takes away from lie and diminishes the shame, and enables them to regain some of the power that was stolen.
Tamika Jones-Nwalipenga created and implemented an innovative Performing Arts Program for young single mothers, ages 16-21, at Journey Home. The program uses the creative power of art as a tool to heal, restore, reconcile, and overcome the struggles many single mothers face today. Through this program, the young women write their own life stories that will then be transformed into dramatic theatrical pieces to be written, directed, and performed by the young women themselves with artistic guidance from Tamika. The women will perform these pieces at the end of their program. Tamika's own experience of using art as an escape and release when she was a younger single mother of two children inspired this program to encourage young women to transform their internal fears into creative expressions of personal empowerment stories, taking control of their fears and passing this wisdom on to their children. This program also educates the general public about the challenges and inner strengths of single mothers. Tamika was formally trained in performing arts at Freedom Theater and Venture Theater in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's Joshua Marcus has been writing and releasing music of great subtlety and strength for over five years. As one of the founders of Like Moving Insects and Fan of Friends, Joshua's songwriting is powerful and astonishingly honest, evoking beauty from everyday juxtapositions.
Although style and arrangement may vary from project to project, his attention to songwriting with plucked banjo, finger-style guitar and acoustic instrumentation remain steady in Joshua's instinct & compositions.
- 2:00-3:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: English 274.301 with Al Filreis (afilreis@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 158.301 with Richard Polman
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 112.301 with Karen Rile (krile@writing.upenn.edu)
- 6:00 PM in Room 209: 34th Street Poets Meeting. For more information, please contact Cindy Savet (savettc@comcast.net).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Tuesday, 3/28
- 5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: A reading with Israeli author Amir Gutfreund from his new book Our Holocaust.
Co-sponsored by the Penn Hillel Israel Cultural Committee.
AMIR GUTFREUND was born in Haifa in 1963. After studying applied mathematics at the Technion, he joined the Israeli Air Force. Our Holocaust was his first novel. Awarded the Sapir Prize in 2003, Gutfreund lives in the Galilee with his wife, a clinical psychologist, and their two children.
Our Holocaust is the story of two children, Amire and Effi, who struggle to learn the stories of their parents and extended community - those who survived the Holocaust. "As Amir grows up, his obsession with understanding the Holocaust remains with him, and finally Old Enough to know, the unforgettable cast of characters that populate his world open their hearts, souls, and pasts to him..."
To hear a recording of this program in mp3 format, please click here.
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| This event is featured in Eric Karlan's NOTES FROM THE GREEN COUCH, a series of summaries and analyses of Writers House events. Click on the image above. |
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 115.301 with Max Apple (maxapple@english.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 145.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 4:30-7 PM in Room 202: Latitudes, a graduate reading group in the Department of English. For more information, please contact Jeehyun Lim (jlim2@english.upenn.edu).
- 6-8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes poetry group; for more information, email Pat Green (patgreen@vet.upenn.edu).
- 9:00 PM in Room 202: Penn Review Art Committee; for more information, email Ayaka Iwata (ayakaji@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Wednesday, 3/29
- 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: a program with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and non-fiction writer David Maraniss
David Maraniss is a writer-at-large for the Washington Post, a former associate editor and the author of two critically-acclaimed and bestselling books, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi and First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton. He is also the author of The Clinton Enigma. His most recent book is They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967, an epic story of Vietnam and the 1960s told through the events of a few tumultuous days in October 1967.
At the Washington Post, Maraniss won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his articles on Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign. Prior to joining the Post in 1977, Maraniss served as a reporter for the Madison Capital Times, WIBA Radio and the Trenton Times.
Download a recording of this event here.
- 8 PM in the Arts Cafe: SPEAKEASY: Poetry, Prose, Anything Goes!
Open-Mic night at the Writers House. Come to perform or come to listen!
- 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 795.401 with Bob Perelman (perelman@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 202: English 155.301 with Paul Hendrickson (phendric@english.upenn.edu)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: English 010.001 with Elizabeth Scanlon
- 5:30-7:30 PM in Room 209: Film 009.601: Hitchcock with Valerie Ross (vross@writing.upenn.edu)
- 6:30-8:00 PM in Room 202: Lacan Study Group; For more information, contact Patricia Gherovici at (pgherovici@aol.com)
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Thursday, 3/30
- 5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: a reading with Ed Barrett.
Ed Barrett's books of poetry include Theory of Transportation, The Leaves Are Something This Year, Practical Lullabies for Joe, and Common Preludes, Sheepshead Bay and Rub Out, a trilogy of experimental verse novels. His current manuscript is titled "In the Blue Smoke." For the Off-Broadway stage, he has translated Antigone, and he was librettist for the opera Coyote, premiered by the Manhattan Chamber Opera Company. Barrett has also written a series of books on new media and the humanities, including Contextual Media: Multimedia and Interpretation, Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge, The Society of Text: Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Information, and Text, ConText, and HyperText, all from MIT Press. "Digital Poetry," his next book in this field, is forthcoming from MIT Press. Barrett holds a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University where he also studied Greek, Old Norse and Old Irish. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is senior lecturer in Writing and Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
You can hear the mp3 recordings of the poetry reading and the discussion with Ed Barett here.
- 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM in Room 202: English 135.304 with Patrick Wehner (pwehner@writing.upenn.edu)
- 12:00-1:30 PM in Room 202: Women's Studies 009.301 with Felicity Paxton (fpaxton@sas.upenn.edu)
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 202: English 111.302 with Erica Hunt
- 1:30-4:30 PM in Room 209: English 112.302 with Diane McKinney-Whetstone (whetstones@comcast.net)
- 8:00 PM in Room 202: Compass meeting. For more information, contact Ari Paul (apaul@sas.upenn.edu).
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.
Friday, 3/31
- 1:00 - 3:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A Journalism Workshop in collaboration with the Daily Pennsylvanian, featuring
Penn alumnus and New Republic Managing Editor Jeremy Kahn. Space is extremely limited! RSVP required to
wh@writing.upenn.edu. For more information contact Jeff Greenwald at
jbg@sas.upenn.edu.
Jeremy Kahn is currently the managing editor of The New Republic, a weekly magazine that analyzes politics and culture. Previously, he spent seven years as a writer at Fortune magazine where he covered economic reconstruction in Iraq and investigated the oil industry in Venezuela. Kahn, who graduated from Penn in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in History, was managing editor at The Daily Pennsylvanian while at Penn. He also holds a masters’ degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Please note that some of the discussions and classes listed below are open to the public and some require advance registration or enrollment. Call 215-746-POEM or e-mail wh@writing.upenn.edu for more info.