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All events take place at the Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia (U of P).
Saturday, 4/1
- 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, 4/2
- 8-11:00 PM throughout the House: Underground Shakespeare Company Meeting
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, 4/3
- 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.)
- 7:00 PM: DIAPHORISMS - A Book Launch & Roundtable Discussion with Jean-Michel Rabaté and Osvaldo
Romberg. Moderated by Bob Perelman.
In conjunction with "The Library is Burning: Text, Image, Object 1963-2005", an exhibition by Osvaldo Romberg, University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia (April 7 -- June 7, 2006). Curated by Aaron Levy.
These object-books were born from the collaboration between a visual artist and a writer who both wanted to question the traditional opacity of books. By a pun that collapses transparency (diaphorism) and the literary or philosophical aphorism, these three-dimensional hand-made artifacts include fragments of texts in a playful Wunderkammer. There, fossils, insects, and pebbles testify to the materiality of the word. The plastic pages cannot be cut but unfolded and function as folds, curtains, textured veils trembling and shimmering in a changing light. These arresting books call up the visual palimpsests of our layered lives. The raw natural history that we would discover as children in school meets the verbal utopia of one-liners condensing individual fate in mundane objects elevated to art.
Jean-Michel Rabaté is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania since 1992
and a Senior Curator at Slought Foundation. He has authored or edited twenty books on James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett,
Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Thomas Bernhard, Modernism, psychoanalysis and literary theory. Among these, The Ghosts of
Modernity (1996); Joyce and the Politics of Egoism (2001); Jacques Lacan and Literature (2001); and Tout
dire ou ne rien dire, logiques du mensonge (2005). He recently edited Writing the Image after Roland Barthes
(1997); Jacques Lacan in America (2000); The Cambridge Companion to Jacques Lacan (2002); The Future of
Theory (Blackwell, 2002); Architecture Against death: On Arakwa and Gins (2005); and, with Aaron Levy, Of the
Diagram: The Art of Marjorie Welish (2003).
Osvaldo Romberg was born in Buenos Aires. He is a Professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and a Senior
Curator at Slought Foundation, where he has curated retrospectives on artists such as William Anastasi, Hermann Nitsch, and
Dennis Oppenheim. He has also curated exhibitions on Faith at the Aldrich Museum and on Urbanism at White Box, New York.
Before joining the curatorial team at Slought Foundation, his artwork was the subject of a 2001 symposium at the University of
Pennsylvania and a volume of critical essays, Searching for Romberg (2002). He has widely exhibited as an artist at
institutions including: Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Sudo Museum, Tokyo; The
Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Jewish Museum, New York; the XLI Venice Biennial, Israel Pavilion; and the Van Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven.
Bob Perelman was born in Ohio, attended the University of Michigan, and received an MFA from the Writer's Workshop at
the University of Iowa in 1971. He and his wife Francie Shaw then lived in Cambridge MA until they moved to the Bay Area in
1976, where he was active in the burgeoning literary scene, editing Hills magazine, organizing the Talk Series and
performances of the Zukofskys' A-24, and participating various art ventures, including 80 Langton Street (now Langton Arts)
and Poets Theater. In 1990 he received a PhD from Berkeley, after which he, his wife and their two sons moved to Philadelphia,
where he is now Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Perelman has published 16 books of poetry, including
Playing Bodies (Granary Books), a painting/poem collaboration with Francie Shaw, Ten to One: Selected Poems
(Wesleyan) and The Future of Memory (Roof). A new book, In a Mean Time, will be out from Roof Press this fall.
His critical books are The Trouble With Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein and Zukofsky (California) and The
Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History (Princeton). He has edited two collections of poets'
talks: Hills Talks and Writing/Talks (Southern Illinois). These will be re-published in one volume by Salt Press
this fall.
To hear a full recording of this program in mp3 format, click here.
Organized by Peter Schwarz.
For more information, please email hschwarz@sas.upenn.edu
- 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).
- 7:30 PM in Room 209: Reality Writes Meeting; for more information, contact Mary Hale Meyer (mhmeyer65@earthlink.net).
- 9:00 PM in Room 209 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.
Tuesday, 4/4
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: Theorizing presents ""What is Legal Feeling?", a talk by Ravit Reichman
After receiving her Ph.D. from Yale University, Ravit Reichman began teaching in Brown's English Department and is currently an Assistant Professor there. At present, Reichman is working on a book entitled Duties of Care: Taking Responsibility in Literature and Law, which examines responses to trauma and war in fictional and legal texts. She has published articles on Holocaust testimony, legal character, Virginia Woolf and tort law, and Rebecca West and the Nuremberg trial.
- 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)
- 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, 4/5
- 12:00 in the Arts Cafe: "Common Threads: Transformation through the writing of wartime
diaries," a lunchtime conversation with Stephen Glantz, Zlata Filipovic, Melanie Challenger, and Clara
Karmer. RSVP required to wh@writing.upenn.edu.
Stolen Voices is a book of twentieth-century children's war diaries, edited by Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger, forthcoming from Viking. The collection is "the first of its kind to expose the universality of the experience of conflict by young people, wherever and whenever these atrocities have occurred (Introduction)." "The Children's Diaries" is a collaborative project between Stephen Glantz, Agnieszka Holland, and others, for a television series based on children’s diaries from the Holocaust, World War II, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Sarajevo and many other countries where children are affected by war and genocide.
Penn alumnus Stephen Glantz is a writer, screenwriter, editor, producer, and director in film, documentary film, and journalism. He has written for People, Harper's Weekly, and Viva, among others. He has been a producer, writer, editor, or director for countless television series, television films, and feature films, including Divorce Court, First and Ten, Murder So Sweet, Wilbur Falls, and the acclaimed Holocaust films Babij Jar and The Last Stage. He has collaborated with a wide range of producers, actors, and directors, including Ed Feldman, Alan Ladd, Steve Tisch, Susan Sarandon, Ted Danson, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Zlata Filipovic's teenage diary chronicling her life in war-torn Sarajevo (Viking and Puffin Books, 1993) has been translated into thirty-six languages. She holds a BSc. in Human Sciences from Oxford University (2001) and MPhil in International Peace Studies from Trinity College Dublin (2004). She has spoken extensively at schools and universities around the world about her experiences and has worked on many occasions with different organisations such as the Anne Frank House, UN and UNICEF, also being a three-time member of UNESCO Jury for Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize for Tolerance. Her written work includes contributions to several books and newspapers, including a foreword for The Freedom Writers Diary (Doubleday, 1997), and the English translation of Milosevic: The People’s Tyrant (Tauris, 2004), for which she has also written a foreword. She has recently worked within the UN Children in Armed Conflict Division in New York under Olara Otunnu.
Melanie Challenger has been the director of The Mostar Foundation since starting it in 2000, helming projects that have included the commission and production of an opera commemorating the fifth anniversary of the end of war in Bosnia, and working with Anne Frank Trust, UNICEF, British Council and Canadian Initiative for Children in Conflict on projects that use music and literature to promote moral awareness in young people. She was the first writer to be granted permission to adapt the Anne Frank diary into a libretto. Melanie is a published poet, the recipient of two Arts Council writing awards in 2003-4, The Society of Author’s Eric Gregory Award in 2005 for her first collection, World, Gorgonised, and a finalist for the Koret Young Writer Award (USA) for 2004-5. She is currently working on an anthology of war poetry, a major new book of non-fiction, and the librettos for two new oratorios. She is completing her PhD at London University, where she teaches Creative Writing.
Holocaust survivor Clara Kermer's diary has been donated to the US Holocaust Museum in DC. She and her husband met in a displaced persons camp, emigrated to Israel and then to the US. Clara has her own foundation, The Holocaust Resource Center, which works in conjunction with Kean University. Over 1300 teachers have gone through the program which offers courses in teaching the Holocaust and prejudice reduction.
- 6:30 PM: HOLD for Art Gallery reception.
- 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)
- 7:00 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, 4/6
- 5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: "Once upon a time: TIME!": An evening of Liberian Food and
Storytelling, cosponsored by the Center for Folklore and
Ethnography, the Agape African Senior Center, the African
Studies Center, the Program in Folklore and Folklife, and the
Center for Community Partnerships.
RSVP REQUIRED to wh@writing.upenn.edu.
Come and meet elders from one of Philadelphia's largest African immigrant communities. Students of Folklore 321, Exploring Memory and Tradition in Philadelphia Communities,” have worked with the Agape African Senior Center to prepare a community storytelling event and food fest designed to engage the audience. The animal tales and dilemma stories of the elders are windows onto vital knowledge and experience accumulated over many generations. The dishes, rich in essential ingredients such as palm oil, cassava, potato leaves, fish, goat, chicken, and plantain, are recipes for community health. Learn how the food and stories together nurture community life in a time of exile.
Food will be catered by Evamos African Restaurant.
Download a recording of this event 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).
- 7:00-9:30 PM: Publications Room reserved for XConnect.
- 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, 4/7
- 12:00 PM in the Dining Room: CPCW Spring Lunch.
- Introductions (4:31): MP3
- On the American lyric (2:14): MP3
- On epic today (2:25): MP3
- On the significance of lyric (2:49): MP3
- "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" and form (2:36): MP3
- On process (0:34): MP3
- On memory (1:47): MP3
- On politics (3:00): MP3
- On creating space (6:28): MP3
- On imagery in "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" (1:36): MP3
- On language (2:53): MP3
- On contemporary black writers (1:23): MP3
- On the academy (1:50): MP3
- On her students (0:31): MP3
- On bodies (3:30): MP3
"Lunchtime Conversation with Major Jackson and Claudia Rankine" cosponsored by Africana Studies and Talk Poets.
To hear a recording of this event in mp3 format, click here.
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, 4/8
- 4:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: "Positive Soliloquies" - A Screening of Roz Plotzker's Junior Fellows Project
Roz's Junior Fellows project, "Positive Soliloquies," is a documentary about two women living with HIV in Philadelphia. At the Spring 2006 public screening of the film, they will both be present to discuss their experiences and answer questions.
When completed, Roz hopes this film will be used as a resource for HIV activism in Philadelphia, as well as a source of inspiration for HIV positive women.
Join us for a reception and discussion after the screening!
- 8:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: An Evening of Song with poet and musician Pepi Ginsberg with special Brooklyn friends
Danielle Stech Homsy and I Feel Tractor
"After hearing Pepi Ginsberg's songs I can say, with conviction, that a true poet is among us. Culling from the vast histories of blues and folk music, with a bent for experimentation, Pepi takes her knowledge of language and carves a picture of reality that is nuanced and profound, born of abstraction, yet delivered in a way that any can know it. Sharp, decisive and wise beyond her years, Ginsberg moves freely between the world she has created and the world we live in, maintaining a vision that guides our understanding. Her words satiate while her voice emanates from within, conjuring the spirits of jazz and blues singers from decades past, with a strength and beauty that nails you to your seat. Pepi Ginsberg's songs demand us to hear them, speaking with a fresh tongue, truths of this generation." -Gregory Best
Danielle Stech Homsy was born into visions and questions. With a gay Syrian painter and a Ukrainian flamenco dancer for parents, peculiar circumstance and mysterious blessings were the norm, laying the foundation for the peculiar and mysterious artistic expression that would eventually come. Danielle's songwriting reflects a vast scope of influence from techno to traditional folk to early and contemporary classical, drawing on literature as well as music, from ancient to avant, and incorporating elements of chance. Her crystalline vocals, delicately strummed baritone ukulele and found sonic elements evoke the strange delight of a dream where the dreamer's authority is always in question. In her own words, it is "music that wants to listen as much as be heard." Danielle has performed and recorded with a variety of artists, including Tim Fite, Devendra Banhart, CocoRosie, Larry Yes, and the Art of Flying. Most recently she has completed an album with Tim Fite entitled The Water Island. She is a part of the French/International collective the Black and White Skins, and her song "Everyone is Someone's" was released this year on a compilation of the same title. Her album A Bride's Guide to Waiting Music is an art object inside and out. It is not to be missed.
I Feel Tractor:
Lights up. (A mother and son driving across a highway in the Midwest.)
Adam's Mom: What is this poetry nonsense? I don't understand it.
Adam: You can personify objects &/or replace emotions with them in an attempt to create new meaning. (They pass a tractor.)
Adam's Mom: (Disbelievingly) What, so I could say I feel tractor & that would be poetry?
Curtain.
- 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, 4/9
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, 4/10
- 6 PM: Eminent journalist and Newsweek senior political correspondent Howard Fineman discusses writing about
politics.
Howard Fineman is a Senior Editor, Chief Political Correspondent, and Deputy Washington Bureau Chief for
Newsweek magazine, where he has helped the magazine win three National Magazine Awards (1982, 1992, and 1999). Fineman
is also a news analyst for NBC and its cable networks, MSNBC and CNBC, and appears regularly on Hardball with Chris
Matthews and The News with Brian Williams. He has reported for most major news programs, including The Today
Show, Nightline, Larry King Live, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Dateline. Fineman was among
the first journalists to write about the political rise of George W. Bush in 1994 and has since written dozens of stories
about president Bush, including the president's first extensive interview after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Fineman's other cover stories have included extensive coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the rise of the religious
right, the emergence of talk radio, race and politics, and the influence of Hollywood on politics. Fineman earned a BA at Colgate University, an MS in Journalism at Columbia University, and a law degree at the University of Louisville and Georgetown, where he was a visiting student in 1979-80. He has recieved Watson and Pulitzer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and the Middle East. Overseas, Fineman has reported for magazines and MSNBC from Vietnam, China, Turkey, and the U.K.
Download a recording of this event here.
- 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, 4/11
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A reading with Meg Wolitzer, introduced by Max Apple, co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Department
Meg Wolitzer's seven novels include The Position, The Wife, and Surrender, Dorothy. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. Wolitzer has taught writing at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop and Skidmore College, among others, and she currently lives in New York City with her husband and sons.
To hear a recording of this program in mp3 format, 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 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, 4/12
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: A Lunch Program with Dick Polman. (Please note: this program has been rescheduled from
March 13th.) 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.
- 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)
- 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, 4/13
- 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: "Small Press, New Book": A Poetry Reading featuring poets Leonard Gontarek, Lisa
Sewell, and Martha Rhodes.
Leonard Gontarek is the author of four books of poems: St. Genevieve Watching Over Paris, Van Morrison Can't Find His Feet, Zen For Beginners, and Déjà Vu Diner, published in 2006 by Autumn House Press. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, Field, Fence, Exquisite Corpse, and The Best American Poetry 2005. In 2005, he was awarded poetry prizes from Mudfish magazine (judged by David Lehman) and Mad Poets Review (judged by Gerald Stern). He was a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Poetry Fellow in 2004. He has coordinated The Philadelphia Reading Series, The Philadelphia Poetry Festival. and Peace / Works: Poets And Writers For Peace.
Lisa Sewell is the author of The Way Out (Alice James Books) and Name Withheld, which is forthcoming from Four Way Books. She has published essays and articles on Brenda Hillman, Ted Hughes, Louise Gluck and Sylvia Plath and is co-editing a collection of essays on contemporary American poetics for Wesleyan University Press. She has received grants and awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Leeway Foundation and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Recent work is appearing or forthcoming in Third Coast, The Laurel Review and Denver Quarterly. She teaches in the English Department at Villanova University and lives in Philadelphia.
Martha Rhodes is the author of three poetry collections: At the Gate (Provincetown Arts 1995), Perfect
Disappearance (winner of the 2000 Green Rose Prize from New Issues), and Mother Quiet (Zoo Press, released in
2000). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is the director of
Four Way Books, an independent literary press in New York City.
Download a recording of this event 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, 4/14
- 1:00 - 3:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: Journalism Bootcamp with Dick Polman in collaboration with the Daily Pennsylvanian.
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.
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, 4/15
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, 4/16
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, 4/17
12:00 PM in the Dining Room: A lunch program with Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, sponsored by Dick
Polman's Advanced Journalistic Writing class. Please RSVP to wh@writing.upenn.edu.
6:30 PM: The Kelly Writers House Fellows Program presents nonfiction writer and humorist Ian Frazier. RSVP only. To RSVP, please call
215-573-9749 or email whfellow@writing.upenn.edu. 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, 4/18
- 10:00 AM: The Kelly Writers House Fellows Program presents nonfiction writer and humorist Ian Frazier--brunch and interview led by Al Filreis. RSVP only. To RSVP, please call 215-573-9749 or email whfellow@writing.upenn.edu. Click here for more information about this event and all Writers House Fellows programs.
6:30-9:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: Alice B. Toklas dinner - A Kristina Baumli' ENG 012 and KWH "Hub" event
Watch the reading of this event here.
Watch the discussion of this event here.
Photos from the event:
- 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).
- 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, 4/19
- 5:30 PM in the Arts Cafe: The MACHINE series present Stuart Moulthrop.
Stuart Moulthrop is an author, speaker, and lecturer who is widely considered a leading innovator in hypertext
fiction's "golden age". The recipient of the Dougle Englebart Award and a grant from the National Science Foundation,
Moulthrop now writes essays on humanities scholarship in the age of cybertext after publishing key works such as "Victory
Garden," "Reagan Library," "The Color of Television," and "Pax." Besides his recent tenure on the
Electronic Literature Organization's Board of Directors, Moulthrop currently teaches at the University of Baltimore, where he
directs the B.S. program in Applied Information Technology and contributes to the Master's and Doctoral programs. To hear a recording of this program in mp3 format, please click here.
- 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)
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, 4/20
- 1:30 PM: "First My Motorola" a reading with students from Kenny Goldsmith's English 165 course, "Writing About Art and Culture", and celebration for their collaborative project with the Institute of Contemporary Art, the book "Rodney Graham .She Stood UpFor Herself".
Members of Kenny Goldsmith's English 165 class spent their fall semester studying and writing about the works of Canadian artist Rodney Graham, with the goal of a retrospective publication in mind. By the end of the semester, one theme seemed to overtake all others: what would Rodney Graham's work be like if he were a woman? The students, along with Kenny Goldsmith and Naomi Beckwith, have spent this semester assembling and editing old work on this topic, as well as creating new works.
Download a recording of this event 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).
- 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, 4/21
- End of Spring Classes
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, 4/22
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, 4/23
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, 4/24
- Reading Days
- CANCELLED: A student reading with the Penn-Edison Tutoring Partnership.
- 8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe: LIVE at the Writers House tapes its Spring Celebration episode, featuring
Tracy Byford, Mike McGrath, Dr. Tomasz Anisiko, Moira
Sheridan, and Ilene Sternberg, with musical guest Kevin
James Version (from Flat Possum Boys).
Tracy Byford is the manager of the BioPond Garden on the Penn campus, a role she has held for the past 26 years. She is
a MLA graduate student, and the facilitator of the Kelly Writer’s House Jabberwocky Children’s Writing group. She has
published short articles and stories in both nonfiction and fiction, and has worked as an editor for a small print magazine.
She is married to another longtime Penn employee, has a grown daughter working in Manhattan, and spends her free time on her
commercial farm in New Jersey where she and her husband raise hay, cattle, hogs and chickens.
Mike McGrath is the host of the popular WHYY 91FM show “You Bet Your Garden.” Mike was editor-in-chief of Organic
Gardening magazine from 1991 through 1997. The one time Marvel Comics editor is the author of several books, including
Kitchen Garden A to Z (Abrams; 2004) and You Bet Your Tomatoes (Rodale; 2002). Mike was the garden expert for
the Saturday edition of The Today Show from 1993 through 1997, chaired major exhibits that won four consecutive "Best of Show"
awards at the prestigious Philadelphia Flower Show, and will not eat lima beans, no matter how much you pay him.
Ilene Sternberg is a freelance writer whose work appears internationally on a variety of subjects. Winner of five
garden writing awards for newspaper columns and essays, she is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post,
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Plants & Gardens News, Fine Gardening, the magazines of The Pennsylvania Horticultural
Society, The American Horticultural Society, and elsewhere. She has recently finished a book for Lone Pine Publishing called
Perennials for Pennsylvania, and her book Best Garden Plants for Pennsylvania is in bookstores now. A jeweler,
teacher, and former librarian, Sternberg also collects Depressionist Art and dust.
Dr. Tomasz Anisiko is Curator of Plants at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. He holds master's degree in horticulture from the August Cieszkowski Agricultural University in Poznañ, Poland, and doctorate in horticulture from the University of Georgia in Athens, United States. Following his graduation from the University of Georgia in 1995, Dr. Anisiko began working at Longwood Gardens. His responsibilities there include proper naming and identification of plants, coordination of plant trials and plant distribution programs, selection of new cultivars, teaching, and organizing plant collecting expeditions, most recently to Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Chile, China, Georgia, Greece, Guyana, Russia, and Tibet.
Dr. Anisiko published over 80 articles in both English and Polish language periodicals including Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Physiologia Plantarum, HortScience, Journal of the American Rhododendron Society, Journal of the Magnolia Society, The New Plantsman, American Nurseryman, The Green Scene, Erica Polonica, Kwiaty, and Ogrody. His first book, Plant Exploration for Longwood Gardens, was published by Timber Press in 2006 and tells the story of the 50 expedition organized by Longwood Gardens since its inception as a public garden 50 years ago.
Moira Sheridan is a freelance garden writer who does a column for the Wilmington (DE) News Journal. She is also a part-time guide at Longwood Gardens, and part-time instructor at Delaware Technical and Community College. A 1980 Georgetown University graduate, she taught English and German for 16 years before getting into horticulture. She became a certified Master Gardener through the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension and tends a huge garden that includes vegetables, fruits, herbs, and ornamentals - all organic and major compost happens here. Moira won a 2005 Bronze Award of Merit from the Garden Writers Association and is a member of GWA as well as the Hardy Plant Association and the American Horticultural Society.
Kevin James Holland was born in Montgomery County, PA to landowners, James and Abigail MulHolland. Their only child, he was home schooled until a golfing accident rendered his father unable to maintain his position. At 17, he dropped the "Mul" from his surname and moved out of their Red Hill townhouse apartment. Holland found affordable room and board in an unfurnished carriage house in Schwenksville, PA and began to apply to numerous colleges and universities. As his education was incomplete, he fudged certain achievements and degrees in the application process. Accepted with full scholarship and a small stipend at Vassar College, his first choice, Holland was deemed "not sufficiently engaged" in his schoolwork during his first semester. He dropped out in the winter of 1992 and was inactive for a year and a half. He then attended a small liberal arts college in Indiana whose name he could not recollect at the time of this interview, but dropped out after it was learned that he was not attending class at all.
The next 5 years found Holland in such places as Miami FL, Atlanta GA, Raleigh NC, Washington D.C., Richmond VA, Baltimore MA, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston MA and New Orleans, where he made various street recordings. Although the material from this period is commonly regarded as his greatest, his resistance to releasing material rendered him unknown until widespread use of the Internet and mp3 downloading took hold. Fans from several continents began to download his home recordings, but Holland received no remuneration. Disregarding contact from several major record labels, speculations arose as to Holland's mental health. A 2002 benefit concert series was held in Toronto in order to raise funds for much needed dental work.
To hear an mp3 recording of this program, please click here.
- 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, 4/25
- Reading Days
- 11:00 AM in the Arts Cafe: A Modern Poetry Symposium with Professor Al Filreis and the "KIPP 3-D Middle School,
Carie-Anne Simmons' class
Modern Poetry Symposium presented by Al Filreis for seventh-grade students visiting Philadelphia from The KIPP Academy. Former Penn student Elliott Witney has taught with the KIPP Academy, a special charter school for urban children, for several years. Witney was among the founding members of the Writers House "hub" or Planning Committee in 1995-96. Each year Witney and his colleagues visit Penn and are taught by several members of the faculty.
- noon on the first floor of the House: CPCW all-stuff luncheon
- 5:30 PM: Writers House Planning Committee ("Hub") End-of-Year Party. (For more information about the "hub" or to RSVP, write to wh@writing.upenn.edu.)
To listen to recordings of this event in mp3 format, see the Hub End-of-Year page; or, to hear a recording of the entire program, 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 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).
- 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, 4/26
- Reading Days
- This event has been rescheduled in the fall semester on September 13.
12:30 PM: A lunchtime conversation with Penn alumnus and author Greg Manning. RSVP required to wh@writing.upenn.edu.
Greg Manning is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked as a
reporter, an editor, and in senior marketing positions in the financial information
industry at Telerate Systems Incorporated, as a Partner at Market Data Corporation, and as
a Senior Vice President of Euro Brokers, which was based at the World Trade Center. In
November 2002 he joined Cantor Fitzgerald, and in 2004 moved to eSpeed, where he is Vice
President of Intellectual Property Development. He is the author of the New York Times
bestseller, LOVE, GREG & LAUREN: A Powerful True Story of Courage, Hope, and
Survival, which has been published in seven languages and was chosen as an Alternate
selection by Doubleday Book Club and was a finalist for the Books for Better Life Award.
The book was excerpted by Reader's Digest and featured in newspapers, magazines and on
television around the world. With his wife, Lauren, he was honored by the Anti-Defamation
League at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and has been featured on NBC’s Today Show,
the Oprah Winfrey Show and on CNN's Larry King Live. He served on the Advisory Council of
the 9/11 United Services Group, a consortium of human service organizations that helped
coordinate assistance for victims of the Trade Center attack and their families. - 5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe:
a reading by the 2006 winners of the CPCW Creative Writing Contest.
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. 
Each spring, the Creative Writing Program sponsors several contests for Penn students. Contest winners are selected by judges who have no affiliation with the university.
Please click here for more information.
Listen to a full recording of the event.
- 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)
- 2:00-5:00 PM in Room 209: Make up class for Karen Rile
- 7:00-9:00 PM in Room 202: STEAK writing group
- 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, 4/27
- Final Exams
- 7:00 PM:
Poetry, Politics, Proximity: The Third Annual
Kerry
Sherin Wright Prize Program
For this year's Kerry Sherin Wright program, hub members Josh Schuster and Jessica Lowenthal commissioned new work from six writers: C.A. Conrad, Jamie-Lee Josselyn, Jenn McCreary, Jena Osman, Frank Sherlock, and John Taggart. Josh and Jessica asked each of the six writers to compose work about the microclimate and micropolitics of their neighborhoods -- within 100 meters -- focusing, in particular, on changes and tensions they may have noticed since the recent, intense conservative turn in American governmental practice. A list of questions prompted each writer to think about a broad range of local subjects, from neighbors and their noises to the relationship between economy and ecology.
C.A. CONRAD lives and works in Philadelphia with the PhillySound poets (http://phillysound.blogspot.com). He is the author of Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006) and several chapbooks, including a collaboration with Frank Sherlock, (end-begin w/chants) (Mooncalf Press). Conrad co-edits FREQUENCY Audio Journal with Magdalena Zurawski.
JAMIE-LEE JOSSELYN graduated from Penn in 2005 with a degree in Creative Writing and French. A nonfiction writer with an interest in poetry, her work has appeared in Lost Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Peregrine. Jamie-Lee is currently the Assistant to the Faculty Director at the Kelly Writers House and is working on a longform nonfiction project on the life of her mother.
JENN MCCREARY lives and writes in Philadelphia, where she co-edits ixnay press, a venue for new and experimental writing. McCreary is the author of errata stigmata (Potes & Poets, 1999), four o'clock pocket chiming (Beautiful Swimmer Press 2000), and A Doctrine of Signatures (Singing Horse Press, 2002), a beautiful book that shares space with Chris McCreary's The Effacements.
JENA OSMAN teaches at Temple University. Her books of poetry include Essay in Asterisks (Roof, 2004), The Character (Beacon, 1999) and Amblyopia (Avenue B, 1993). Chapbooks include Jury (Meow Press, 1996), Balance (Leave Books, 1992), Underwater Dive: Version One (Paradigm Press, 1990) and Twelve Parts of Her (Burning Deck Press, 1989). Her poems have been translated into French, Swedish, and Serbo-Croatian. With Juliana Spahr, she edits the award-winning and internationally recognized literary magazine Chain.
FRANK SHERLOCK lives in Philadelphia, where he curates the Night Flag Reading Series, held every other Saturday evening at the Khyber. He is the author of 13 (Ixnay press, 1998), ISO (Furniture Press) and Ace Diamond Satellite, forthcoming in 2006. Along with CA Conrad, Sherlock is a co-founder of PACE (Poet Activist Community Extension).
JOHN TAGGART is a world-renowned poet, editor, and critic. His many collections include Peace on Earth (1981), Loop (Sun & Moon Press, 1992), Standing Wave (Lost Roads, 1993), and Pastorelles (Flood Editions, 2004). Of Pastorelles, the late Robert Creeley wrote: "John Taggart has long been master of accumulating, complexly layered patterns of sound and sense, and here he uses his formal powers with a perfect, unobtrusive authority. In these modest 'songs' of quiet reflection Taggart echoes the world in which he's lived, making particular the mind and heart's persistent need. If poetry has abiding value, and it has, it is because it can so articulate, as here, all that a life comes to care about - and all that it, so defined, ever is."
You can hear the entire program on PennSound's Poetry, Politics, Proximity event 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)
- 5:30-8:15 PM in Room 202: Kitsi Watterson's End-of-Year Class Celebration
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, 4/28
- Final Exams
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, 4/29
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, 4/30
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.