March 2025
Saturday, 3/1/2025
Sunday, 3/2/2025
Monday, 3/3/2025
Penn Appétit Food Summit
Justin Bacharach, Sarah Maiellano, and Christina Torres
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
hosted by: Ashrit Challa (C'25) and the students of Penn Appétit
Presented by Penn Appétit magazine, the annual Penn Appétit Food Summit covers a wide range of topics related to the food industry, typically featuring local chefs, restaurateurs, and food writers. Join us for this year’s event, hosted by Ashrit Challa (C’25), with panelists Justin Bacharach of Royal Izakaya, food and travel journalist Sarah Maiellano, and Christina Torres of Weckerly’s.
Tuesday, 3/4/2025
HELED TRAVEL GRANT PRESENTATIONS
Armie Chardiet (C’25) and Daniel Gurevitch (C’24)
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Heled Travel and Research Grants enable students to travel and conduct research for significant writing projects. Join us for presentations by this year’s winners: Daniel Gurevitch (C’24), whose Human Connection Project (HCP) involved a journey to spread gratitude, combat loneliness, and inspire meaningful social interaction; and Armie Chardiet (C’25), who created a documentary film about running that explores the intersection of the natural world, the body, and the runner as a subject.
Armie Chardiet is a writer, editor, and translator. When they are not doing one of those three things you can often find them running around Philadelphia or running quickly in circles around a track. They are an editor for The Woodlands Magazine, which is unequivocally the best magazine on campus. Previously, they have had work featured at the New York Fringe Festival, Penn One Act Festival, and various publications. This is their last semester at Penn and will be receiving a master’s and bachelor’s degree in English.
Armie’s Heled Travel Grant project explored the intersection of the natural world, the body, and the runner as a subject. Their project evolved into a documentary where they used archival photos of the runners and their own photography of the natural world juxtaposed on top of and underneath running and interview footage. The runners, Morgan McDonald and Ollie Hoare have been professional runners since 2019 and run the 5000 meters and 1500 meters respectively. Both athletes train with the ON Athletics Club out of Boulder, Colorado. During Armie’s visit they were nearing the end of their training cycle while approaching the Paris Olympics.
Daniel Gurevitch (C’24) majored in political science and psychology with minors in computer science and cognitive science (a long way of saying his grandmother is proud of him). Daniel’s adventures have included everything from interning at The White House to starting his own band despite having minimal music talent. He recently started working as employee #2 at Velocity Partners, a strategic advisory firm based in DC.
Daniel’s Heled Travel Grant Project, The Human Connection Project (HCP) — a journey to spread gratitude, combat loneliness, and inspire meaningful social interaction — took place over four weeks, 4710 miles, and 23 thank you-cards. Along the way, Daniel met a Guatemalan spy, was gifted three free beers, and participated in a pro-Ukraine protest in the middle of Krakow. But the real magic happened in the quiet exchange of thank you cards to friends and strangers alike.
Beethoven in Beijing
A roundtable discussion with Jennifer Lin, Liza Vick, and Shelley Zhang
6:00 PM in person
moderated by: Xinyi Ye
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a roundtable on the documentary Beethoven in Beijing to uncover the story behind Philadelphia Orchestra’s pivotal performance in China in 1973 that shaped US-China cultural diplomacy. Penn graduate student Xinyi Ye will host a gathering of journalists, librarians, and researchers —Jennifer Lin, Liza Vick, and Shelley Zhang— who will each introduce their research and works on our very local and beloved Philadelphia Orchestra’s China visit. While the archives uncover the Orchestra’s behind the scene stories, we’ll invite you to discuss the art and science of archival-based non-fiction writing!
Jennifer Lin is an award-winning journalist, author and documentary filmmaker. She produced and co-directed the feature-length documentary, Beethoven in Beijing, about the Philadelphia Orchestra’s China legacy, which premiered in 2021 on PBS’s Great Performances. The film was a 2020 finalist for the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns prize for film and received support from the National Endowment for Humanities. In 2022, Temple University Press published her companion oral history, Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China. For 31 years, Jennifer worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer as a reporter, including posts as a foreign correspondent in China, a financial correspondent on Wall Street, and a national correspondent in Washington, DC. In 2017, Jennifer published a family memoir, Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family (Rowman & Littlefield). As a filmmaker, Jennifer directed and produced a short documentary, Ten Times Better, about an 89-year-old Chinese-American blackjack dealer in Las Vegas who was a pioneer in ballet and Broadway. Focusing on the Asian experience in dance, Jennifer is working on another documentary project, Beyond Yellowface, about two New York City dancers trying to rid ballet of offensive Asian stereotypes.
As the Head of then Otto E. Albrecht Music Library, Liza Vick oversees the operations of the music library, including the Ormandy Music and Media Center. She is responsible for the collection development of music materials and serves as the liaison to the Department of Music. Liza is very active in the profession of music librarianship; she has served as member-at-large of the board of directors of the Music Library Association, and as chair of the MLA Publications and Nominating Committees. She was elected to the Council of the American Musicological Society and is a Past President of the Music Library Association. She holds graduate degrees in library science and ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Shelley Zhang is a creative writer, musician, and researcher. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick and the President of the Association for Chinese Music Research. In 2022, she curated the multi-disciplinary event, “Li Delun in Philadelphia: Ethnography, Archives, and Music across the Pacific,” which included a symposium, recital, and pop-up exhibit at Penn’s Kislak Center. In 2023, her poem, “The Price of Ambition,” was commissioned for a music composition, which premiered in 2024. Her academic articles can be found in the internationally peer-reviewed journals, Ethnomusicology Forum and Journal of Material Culture. She is currently working on her first monograph, Millennial Migration: Chinese Musicians after the Cultural Revolution, and developing a second project on Asiatic femininity and issues of performance.
Xinyi Ye is a graduate student of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at University of Pennsylvania focusing on Chinese art history. Her current research interests include Chinese opera and the collection of East Asian material culture in American museums. She graduated from The University of Hong Kong (First Class Honours) with double majors in Art History and Music and a minor in French. She excavated Vedi Fortress (Armenia) in the Ararat Plain Southeast Archaeological Project in 2022 and 2023. She is interested in exploring visual and performing arts as cultural heritage and living practices in global contexts. She has completed the HKU Undergraduate Student Research Fellowship on Chinese Yue opera and has performed as a member of Penn Jazz Ensemble, Penn Afro-Brazilian Ensemble, HKU Chamber Singers (Hong Kong), St Andrews Chorus (Scotland), and St Leonard's Chapel Choir (Scotland). She is currently the chair of the Penn East Asian Studies Graduate Student Research Colloquium (GSRC) and the EALC department’s representative at Penn’s Graduate Student Government of the School of Arts & Sciences (Sasgov). She also serves as the Graduate Guide at the Penn Museum and the Gallery Ambassador at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.
Wednesday, 3/5/2025
Poet Kai Davis: Performance and Conversation
Caroline Rothstein Oral Poetry Program
with Fariha Nawar and members of The Excelano Project
7:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Kai Davis (she/her) is a Black Queer multidisciplinary artist, educator, and the Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Her work explores Blackness, Queerness, womanhood, grief and the many ways these themes converge. Kai has performed for TEDX Philly, CNN, BET, PBS, and NPR, among others. She is a two-time international grand slam champion, winning Brave New Voices in 2011 and The College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in 2016. In 2017 Kai received the Leeway Transformation Award for her years of art for social change work in Philadelphia. She is currently a Co-Organizer and Creative Director for The Philly Pigeon Poetry Show which won the Poetry Foundation’s Equity in Verse Grant in 2023. Her work has been published by 2 Pens & Lint (2012), The Offing (2018), The Shade Journal (2019), and Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (2021) among others.
Thursday, 3/6/2025
Friday, 3/7/2025
Saturday, 3/8/2025
Sunday, 3/9/2025
Monday, 3/10/2025
Tuesday, 3/11/2025
Wednesday, 3/12/2025
Thursday, 3/13/2025
Friday, 3/14/2025
Saturday, 3/15/2025
Sunday, 3/16/2025
Monday, 3/17/2025
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, 3/18/2025
A Celebration of the Life and Work of Lyn Hejinian
6:00 PM in person
sponsored by: The Creative Writing Program
hosted by: Julia Bloch and Laynie Browne
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Please join us for a special evening honoring the life and work of poet, essayist, translator and teacher Lyn Hejinian (May 17, 1941–February 24, 2024). Hejinian is perhaps best known as a founding member of the Language Writing group of poets and for her book My Life, which revolutionized the form of verse memoir, as well as for her essays in the brilliant collection The Language of Inquiry, which introduced readers to the revolutionary concept of "the rejection of closure." Lyn Hejinian was also a beloved teacher, generous force for poetry, activist and community member. Hejinian's oeuvre is truly remarkable and her influence on generations of writers cannot be overstated. A number of poets will read from Lyn's work, offer personal remembrances, and collectively engage with her poetry, critical writing, translation, publishing, and extraordinary presence. This event is both for readers new to Lyn's work as well as for her many devoted readers and friends — all are welcome.
Charles Bernstein met Lyn Hejinian almost fifty years ago. His most recent book is The Kinds of Poetry I Want: Essays & Comedies, from the University of Chicago Press. He is a professor, emeritus, at Penn.
Laynie Browne's recent books of poetry include: Everyone & Her Resemblances (Pamenar, 2024), Intaglio Daughters (Ornithopter 2023), and Practice Has No Sequel (Pamenar 2023). She co-edited the anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press) and edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat). Honors include a Pew Fellowship, the National Poetry Series Award, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pattie McCarthy is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Wifthing (Apogee Press, 2021), and a dozen chapbooks, most recently extraordinary tides (Omnidawn Publishing, 2023). A former Pew Fellow in the Arts, she is a non-tenure-track professor at Temple University where she is currently the Assistant Director of the MFA in Creative Writing.
Jena Osman Jena Osman's first full-length collection of poems, The Character, was selected for the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize by Lyn Hejinian. She has published six books since then, as well as A Very Large Array: Selected Poems. She co-edited the journal Chain with Juliana Spahr from 1994-2005; they were honored to have published excerpts from Hejinian's A Border Comedy, as well as collaborations between Hejinian and Travis Ortiz, Joan Retallack, and Emilie Clark (which can be read at https://jacket2.org/reissues/chain).
Ron Silliman has written and edited forty books of poetry, critical theory, and memoir, most recently The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Letters: Selected 1970s Correspondence of Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, and Ron Silliman.
Claire Marie Stancek is a writer, editor, and educator. Her poetry collections include wyrd] bird (Omnidawn, 2020), Oil Spell (Omnidawn, 2018), and MOUTHS (Noemi, 2017). With Daniel Benjamin, she co-edited Active Aesthetics: Contemporary Australian Poetry (Tuumba/Giramondo, 2016). With the late Lyn Hejinian and Jane Gregory, she co-founded Nion Editions, a chapbook press that she and Jane now co-edit. Claire Marie earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Philadelphia.
Syd Zolf’s most recent books are No One’s Witness: A Monstrous Poetics (Duke, 2021) and a selected poetry, Social Poesis (WLU Press, 2019). Honors also include a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and finalist for several other prizes. They teach at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wednesday, 3/19/2025
A Conversation with Dan Barry
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in person
hosted by: Dick Polman
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Veteran New York Times writer Dan Barry, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, calls himself “a generalist who tries to explore the human condition through investigations, features, and essays. I also enjoy writing stories that have a chance to make people smile.” Since joining the Times in 1995, he has served as the City Hall bureau chief during the Rudy Giuliani administration; written the “About New York” column, chronicling the city and its citizens; traveled the country as the newspapers’ “This Land” columnist; and reported on seminal events, including the 9/11 terrorist attack, Hurricane Katrina and the January 6 Capitol riot. Barry has also authored several books, including Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game and The Boys in the Bunkhouse: Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland.
Speakeasy Open Mic Night
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:00 PM in person
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, you award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.
Thursday, 3/20/2025
Friday, 3/21/2025
Saturday, 3/22/2025
Sunday, 3/23/2025
Monday, 3/24/2025
Chenjerai Kumanyika and Matt Katz
A conversation about the podcast Empire City
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
What are the roots of policing in America? And what does that tell us about law enforcement's stated mission to protect and service? Join Peabody Award–winning podcast host and scholar Chenjerai Kumanyika for a discussion of his podcast, Empire City, which tracks the origins of the NYPD to reveal truths about what law enforcement means in America today. Kumanyika will be in conversation with Matt Katz, a Peabody Award–winning journalist who created and hosted the autobiographical podcast Inconceivable Truth and is now the executive producer of the City Cast Philly podcast. Katz teaches journalistic writing in the Creative Writing Program at Penn.
Alongside his scholarship and teaching, disciplinary service on the intersections of social justice and media, Chenjerai Kumanyika specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. He has written in scholarly venues such as Popular Music & Society, Popular Communication, and The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture, as well as public venues such as The Intercept, Transom, Codeswitch, All Things Considered, Invisibilia, and VICE. Kumanyika is also the co-creator, co-executive producer, and co-host of Uncivil, Gimlet Media's podcast on the Civil War and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio's influential Season 2 "Seeing White," and Season 4 on the history of American democracy. Kumanyika’s work has been recognized with several prestigious honors including the George Foster Peabody Award (2018) for Uncivil and The Media Literate Media Award (NAMLE) for Scene on Radio (2021). In 2021, he received the Union of Democratic Communications' Dallas Smythe Award for his career accomplishments and advocacy.
Matt Katz is an investigative reporter, journalist, and podcast host who has covered everything from local school boards to presidential elections to natural disasters. In 2024 he created, wrote, and hosted an autobiographical podcast, Inconceivable Truth, about how he came to exist. Vogue named it one of the best podcasts of the year, and it hit the Top 10 on the Apple Podcasts charts. For many years Matt covered former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, first for The Philadelphia Inquirer and then WNYC and NPR, winning a Peabody Award and publishing a book, "American Governor: Chris Christie's Bridge to Redemption," with Simon & Schuster. Matt's reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, PBS, and The Washington Post. He also works as an adjunct professor teaching journalism in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Matt is currently executive producer of City Cast Philly, a daily news-and-culture podcast and email newsletter about Philadelphia.
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.
Tuesday, 3/25/2025
Sheno Prize Celebration
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Please join Vote That Jawn, The Philadelphia Citizen, the Penn Creative Writing Program, and the Kelly Writers House for the inaugural Sheno Prize Celebration! Honoring the legacy of Penn graduate, Philadelphia writer, and Vote That Jawn Youth Leader Erinda Sheno (C’22), the Sheno Prizes will recognize high school and college writers for extraordinary pieces on voting, democracy, immigration, and Philadelphia life.
All are welcome for an evening of celebration and community, featuring guest speakers, music, food, and lots of young writers. We’ll toast Erinda’s legacy and celebrate the next generation of Philadelphia writers.
From early on, the quiet, reserved Erinda Sheno brought an unmistakable voice to her writing: witty, naughty, clear-eyed about human foibles and hopeful, especially when it came to the country and the city that her parents came to from Albania to raise their children. The Sheno Prize encourages young writers in Philadelphia to find and share their own unique writing voices.
Wednesday, 3/26/2025
BRODSKY GALLERY OPENING: STUDENT EXHIBIT
Poetry reading and reception with artists
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Curated by Lila Shermeta (C’25), this final Brodsky Gallery exhibition of the spring semester will feature visual art by Philadelphia-area college students. Join us for a poetry reading in honor of the show, followed by a reception with some of the artists.
Thursday, 3/27/2025
Friday, 3/28/2025
Saturday, 3/29/2025
Sunday, 3/30/2025
Monday, 3/31/2025
A reading by Carmen Maria Machado
Kelly Writers House Fellows Program
6:30 PM in person
rsvp required: whfellow@writing.upenn.edu
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House, the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods, and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She is the former Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Her Body and Other Parties was listed as a member of “The New Vanguard” by the New York Times in 2018, as one of “15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.” Her essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is a 2019 recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and a visiting associate professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Spring 2021.