April 2012

Sunday, 4/1

Food Writing: a panel discussion

Rick Nichols, Drew Lazor, and Deb Perelman

10:15 AM in the Arts Cafe

moderated by: Kristen Martin

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Rick Nichols was the food columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer for 15 years, writing by rough count 1,400 short essays, several of which are anthologized in Best Food Writing, the annual collection. A Philadelphia native and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, he teaches journalistic writing at Penn, and leads tours of the city's culinary enclaves for First Person Arts, a local nonprofit. He's a reader at the Rosenbach Museum's annual Bloomsday celebration, and each December plays a mean Ebenezer Scrooge in Narberth's Dickens Festival. This spring the Reading Terminal Market will unveil the finest tribute he could wish for—a new public meeting space to be called The Rick Nichols Room.

A 2006 graduate of La Salle University, Drew Lazor is currently the food editor at the Philadelphia City Paper, overseeing the alt-weekly's dining coverage and running its food and drink blog, Meal Ticket. In addition to his work with CP, Drew contributes writing to Saveur and Zagat and has appeared on Food Network and Travel Channel. He won national first-place honors for food writing in the 2011 AltWeekly Awards.

Deb Perelman has worked as a record store shift supervisor, a scrawler of "happy birthday" on bakery cakes, an art therapist and a technology reporter. She likes her current gig—the one in which she wakes up and cooks whatever she wants every day—the best. When she's not prattling on about galley and grub on her blog, Smitten Kitchen, Deb is an occasional freelance writer and photographer.

Responsible Food Systems: a panel discussion

Judy Wicks, Mary Seton Corboy, and Amanda Wagner

11:45 AM in the Arts Cafe

moderated by: Jenny Chen

supported by: the Kerry Prize

RSVP: wh@writing.upenn.edu

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

An international leader in the localization movement, Judy Wicks founded the White Dog Cafe on the first floor of her Philadelphia row house in 1983, and began buying from local farmers in 1986. Realizing that helping other restaurants connect with local farmers would strengthen the whole regional food system, she founded Fair Food in 2000. The following year she co-founded the nationwide Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and founded the local affiliate Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia comprised of 500 independent, locally owned businesses. In 2009, Judy sold the White Dog through a unique agreement that preserves local, independent ownership and maintains sustainable business practices, including buying from local farmers, composting and using renewable energy. She is currently writing a book, Good Morning, Beautiful Business, to be published by Chelsea Green in fall 2012.

Amanda Wagner is the Food Policy Coordinator for Philadelphia's Department of Public Health, working on tools and strategies to improve access to healthy, affordable food for all Philadelphians. Amanda has worked on food system issues in Philadelphia with a variety of organizations, including as a Food System Planner with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Nationally, she served as a Congressional Hunger Fellow in Arizona and Washington, D.C. She holds master degrees in City and Regional Planning and Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.

Greensgrow Farm co-founder and Chief Farm Hand, Mary Seton Corboy is a homegrown superstar right in our backyard. She is also founder of the Neighborhood Urban Agriculture Coalition (NUAC), Co-founder of the Farmers Market Alliance and was recently named on Organic Style magazine's top 50 "Environmental Power List. Mary transplanted herself from Washington DC to Philadelphia twenty-odd years ago. She has a BA in Political Science and English Lit from Wilson College and a MA in Political Science from Villanova University – neither of which has ever done a lick of good. But she paid off her student loans despite that. Mary founded Greensgrow in 1997, prior to which she was a chef and an estate caretaker.

Monday, 4/2

A poetry reading by Ray DiPalma

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

introduced by: Charles Bernstein

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event via PennSound.

Ray DiPalma is the author of more than 40 collections of poetry, prose, and graphic works. His recent books include The Ancient Use of Stone (Seismicity Editions, 2009), Pensieri (Echo Park Press, 2009), and Further Apocrypha (Pie in the Sky Press, 2009)—as well as L'Usage ancien de la pierre (Éditions Grèges, 2007), Quatre Poèmes (Éditions Comp'Act, 2006), Pensieri (Editions de l'Attente, 2011) (all three books translated into French by Vincent Dussol). Caper, Volume I. (ML & NLF) was published in English and Italian. Among his earlier collections are Numbers and Tempers, Le Tombeau de Reverdy, Provocations, Hôtel des Ruines, Gnossiennes, and Letters. Widely anthologized in America and Europe, translations of his writings have also appeared in Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Chinese. A recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Poetry Fund, he lives in New York City and teaches Literature and Writing at the School of Visual Arts.

Tuesday, 4/3

A poetry reading by Norman Fischer

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

introduced by: Bob Perelman

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event via PennSound.

Norman Fischer is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest who lives in Muir Beach, California. His recent collections of poetry include Questions/Places/Voices/Seasons (Singing Horse, 2009) and Conflict (Chax Press, 2011). His latest prose work is Sailing Home (Simon and Schuster, 2008). You can listen to a variety of recordings spanning several decades on Fischer's PennSound author page.

Wednesday, 4/4

A lunch talk with Rich Galen

Povich Journalism Program

12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Dick Polman

rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Rich Galen's long career includes work in and out of government, in and out of the United States. In Washington, DC, Mr. Galen is an often quoted source for many of the major American news outlets. He has maintained excellent contacts with all of the networks, major daily newspapers, major news weeklies as well as the Associated Press and Reuters wire services. He is also a frequent guest on CNN being paired with such well-known strategists as James Carville, Donna Brazile, and Paul Begala. Among other things, Rich has been press secretary to Dan Quayle, when the former Vice President was a Congressman and a U.S. Senator; and to Newt Gingrich when Gingrich was House Republican Whip and later became the communications director of the political office of Speaker Gingrich. He worked in the U.S. Senate in 2008 as the Senior Advisor to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. He was the executive director of GOPAC in 1998-1999, which is where he began writing his popular on-line column called "Mullings." Rich was part of the bi-partisan, multi-national election observer team asked to go Afghanistan for the national elections there in August, 2009, in Ukraine in February, 2010, and in Nigeria in March, 2011.

Creative Ventures presents:

Night of the Living Room, a Creative Capital Project

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

The Creative Ventures series supports creative collaborations across discipline, emphasizing evolution and innovation, convergence, creative process, and imagination.

Ever ponder about the journey of a secondhand coffee table? Or wonder what bottoms have sat upon the heirloom couch in your grandmother's parlor? Ever stop to consider what the busted bookshelf you're about to toss in the trash could be transformed into? This semester, a Creative Ventures project spearheaded by Tim Miller and Jenny Chen aims to find out the answers to all such musings! Combining the talents of renovators, handymen, repair-women, bloggers, programmers, videographers, and photographers, Tim and Jenny have collected old and broken pieces of furniture on the brink of being thrown away and repair or recreate them. Each piece of furniture has it's own blog, featuring the previous owner's stories about an old chair or table as well as documentation about each piece's transformation. Every new piece of furniture will also be labeled with a QR code so that future owners can easily link to their furniture's blog and add to their stories. Come and find out about this creative project!

http://furniturehack.wordpress.com/about/

Thursday, 4/5

A reading by Keorapetse Kgositsile

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

co-sponsored by: Writers Without Borders, Africana Studies, and the English Department

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Keorapetse Kgositsile is a South African poet of international acclaim. From 1961 to 1975 he lived in exile in the United States as an influential member of the African National Congress. In the US he became a significant member of the African-American poetry community through his identity as an African poet; he is recognized as having bridged an important gap between African poetry and American Black poetry.

Among Kgositsile's influences are Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Charles Dickens, and D.H. Lawrence. His published work includes the poetry collections My Name is Afrika, Heartprints, To the Bitter End, If I Could Sing, and This Way I Salute You. He has received literary awards such as the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Harlem Cultural Council Poetry Award, the Conrad Kent Rivers Memorial Poetry Award, the Herman Charles Bosman Prize, a nd others. In 2008 he was awarded the National Order of Ikhamanga: Silver (OIS).

He has been National Poet Laureate of South Africa since December of 2006.

Friday, 4/6

Reckoning with Torture

2:00 to 4:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Kitsi Watterson

watch: a video recording of Part 1 of this event via KWH-TV.

watch: a video recording of Part 2 of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

From 2:00 to 4:00 PM, Friday, April 6, as part of the Reckoning with Torture project, community members will gather to read aloud declassified documents exposing the human cost of America's post-9/11 torture program. This reading, hosted by Penn creative writing instructor Kitsi Watterson, will be filmed, and the footage will be sent to Reckoning with Torture, a collaborative film project between PEN, the ACLU, and film director Doug Liman. This reading is entirely public, and all are welcome to come watch this moving, important project take shape.

Reckoning with Torture is a collaborative film project between PEN, the ACLU, and film director Doug Liman. This project began as a series of public readings from declassified documents exposing the human cost of America's post-9/11 torture program, and it has grown into one of PEN's most innovative and ground-breaking projects. It honors the role writers have played in fostering accountability for rights abuses around the world, and it embodies our belief in the power of reading—of reading the official record for ourselves, and of standing up and reading that record out loud.

For more information, visit ReckoningWithTorture.org

Saturday, 4/7

Sunday, 4/8

Monday, 4/9

A conversation with Lew Schneider

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Lew Schneider (CAS'83) has been a stand-up comedian, a game show host, an actor and, for the last eighteen years or so, a TV writer-producer. His credits include: his own HBO special, and the series: "American Dad", "The New Adventures of Old Christine," "Men of a Certain Age" (which won a Peabody Award but which very few people watched), and "Everybody Loves Raymond" (which won Emmy Awards and more people watched).

Tuesday, 4/10

A poetry reading by Patrick Donnelly and Eleanor Wilner

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

co-sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Patrick Donnelly's books are The Charge (Ausable Press) and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, forthcoming). Donnelly is Director of the Advanced Seminar at The Frost Place, teaches with the Lesley University MFA Program, and is an Associate Editor of Poetry International and a Contributing Editor of Trans-Portal (www.transtudies.org). With Stephen D. Miller, Donnelly is co-translator of the 141 Japanese poems in The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period, a scholarly history and analysis forthcoming from Cornell East Asia Series. Website: http://web.me.com/patricksdonnelly.

Eleanor Wilner has published seven books of poems, most recently Tourist in Hell (2010, University of Chicago Press); Voci dal Labirinto, a bilingual edition of her poems, selected and translated by Eleonora Chiavetta (Plumelia Edizioni, Italia); The Girl with Bees in Her Hair and Reversing the Spell: New & Collected Poems (Copper Canyon). Her poems appear in over 40 anthologies; her awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Juniper Prize, three Pushcart Prizes, and an NEA Fellowship. She teaches in the MFA Program for Writers, Warren Wilson College.

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes, a poetry group. For more information, contact Pat Green at patricia78@aol.com.
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM in room 202: Pennomicon writing group. For more information, contact pennomicon@comcast.net

Wednesday, 4/11

Travel Writing in the 21st Century

A panel discussion about the art, ethic, and vocation of literary and commercial travel writing in the Information Age

Featuring: David Farley, Rachel Friedman, and Matt Gross

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

moderated by: Rolf Potts

co-sponsored by: Creative Ventures

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

David Farley is the author of the award-winning travel book An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town (Penguin, 2010). He's a Contributing Editor at AFAR magazine and also writes for the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Geographic Traveler, and Gadling.com. He teaches travel writing at New York University.

Matt Gross is a travel and food writer who contributes publications such as Saveur, World Hum, and the New York Times, where he wrote the Frugal Traveler column from 2006 to 2010. His newest series of travel dispatches for the New York Times is called "Getting Lost."

Rachel Friedman is the author of The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure (Bantam Books, 2011). It was a Target Breakout Book and selected by Goodreads' readers as one of the best travel books of 2011. A graduate (B.A., M.A.) of the University of Pennsylvania, she loved being part of the Kelly Writers House Fellows program, where she got to rub elbows with Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, and Walter Bernstein.

5:30 PM to 7:30 PM in Room 202: Penn and Pencil, a writing group for Penn and Health Systems Staff. If you're a Penn employee and want to work on your creative writing, contact Karen Murphy at ktmurphy@mail.med.upenn.edu

Thursday, 4/12

Writing about Place: a lunchtime conversation

featuring The Common's Jennifer Acker, Katherine Hill, and Rolf Potts

presented by the Sylvia Kauders lunch series

12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Jamie-Lee Josselyn

RSVP: wh@writing.upenn.edu

watch: a video recording of this event via via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Jennifer Acker is the founding editor of The Common, a new print journal based at Amherst College featuring literature and images with a strong sense of place. Her translations and essays have appeared in Harper's, the San Francisco Chronicle, The New Inquiry, Publishers Weekly, Tottenville Review, and other publications. Her fiction has been published in journals such as Sonora Review, Dogwood, and Words & Images. Acker is a visiting lecturer at Amherst College. She holds an MFA in writing from Bennington College.

Katherine Hill's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in n+1, AGNI, Colorado Review, The Common, Philadelphia Stories, and Word Riot. She is the winner of the Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction, the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction, and fellowship support from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A staff writer at Wharton by day, she lives in Philadelphia and is at work on a novel. She holds an MFA in writing from Bennington College.

Rolf Potts has reported from over sixty countries for dozens of major venues, including National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Outside, Slate.com, National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel. Rolf is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel, and his book on the subject, Vagabonding, has been through thirteen printings and translated into several foreign languages. His newest book is Marco Polo Didn't Go There. Rolf is the 2011-2012 ArtsEdge resident at the Kelly Writers House and is teaching a course at the University of Pennsylvania on travel writing and short fiction. He holds an MFA in writing from Bennington College.

Jamie-Lee Josselyn works at the Kelly Writers House, where she has coordinated the Writers House Fellows Program and other projects since 2005. She has taught creative nonfiction writing at St. Paul's School's Advanced Studies Program in Concord, New Hampshire, at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the Philadelphia public school system. Her writing has been published in The Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, LOST Magazine, in the six-word memoir anthology It All Changed in an Instant, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in writing from Bennington College.

RealArts@PENN presents Disappointing and Embarrassing Your Parents

A Panel on Careers in Comedy

6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

A panel discussion, led by Philly Improv Theater Executive Director Greg Maughan (SAS '06), featuring local Philadelphia comedians and comedy writers – along with a special guest or two. Join us for a discussion of the day to day aspects of trying to do comedy. How do you find outlets to hone material? Where can you go to get published/have your work performed? What's involved in pitching? Is it enough to have funny material? What role has the internet played in changing the rules for breaking into comedy? What happens after that first big break? Will you die alone if you make it your life's work to make others laugh? All these questions, and more, will be discussed in a free-ranging conversation on trying to entertain the world and get paid for it.

Friday, 4/13

Poetry Communities & the Individual Talent: A Conference on Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetics

Featuring: Maria Damon, Craig Dworkin, Brian Reed, and Steven Yao

11:00 AM to 7:00 PM

Hosted by: Jonathan Fedors and Katie Price with Bob Perelman

Co-sponsored by: the Kelly Writers House, the English Department, Bob Perelman, the Poetry & Poetics Graduate Group, the Office of the Provost, the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women, and Asian American Studies

Poetry Communities and the Individual Talent brings together prominent and emerging scholars in the field of 20th and 21st century poetry and poetics to discuss the role that community plays in how poetry is received, circulated, and understood.

For more information, please visit: http://poetrycommunities.wordpress.com.

11:00am - 5:00pm: Panels
5:00pm - 7:00pm: Keynote Panel, featuring: Maria Damon, Craig Dworkin, Brian Reed, and Steven Yao

Saturday, 4/14

Poetry Communities & the Individual Talent: A Conference on Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetics

Featuring: Maria Damon, Craig Dworkin, Brian Reed, and Steven Yao

9:00 AM to 7:00 PM

Hosted by: Jonathan Fedors and Katie Price with Bob Perelman

Co-sponsored by: the Kelly Writers House, the English Department, Bob Perelman, the Poetry & Poetics Graduate Group, the Office of the Provost, the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women, and Asian American Studies

For more information, please visit: http://poetrycommunities.wordpress.com.

9:00am - 5:00pm: Panels
5:00pm - 7:00pm: Reception

Sunday, 4/15

Monday, 4/16

A MEETING OF THE WRITERS HOUSE PLANNING COMMITTEE (THE "HUB")

5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

RSVP: email jalowent@writing.upenn.edu

From the time of its founding in 1995-1996, the Kelly Writers House has been run more or less collectively by members of its community. Our original team of intrepid founders—the group of students, faculty, alumni, and staff who wanted to create an independent haven for writers and supporters of contemporary writing in any genre—took for themselves the name "the hub." "Hub" was the generic term given by Penn's Provost, President, and other planners who hoped that something very innovative would be done at 3805 Locust Walk to prove the viability of the idea that students, working with others, could create an extracurricular learning community around common intellectual and creative passions. To this day, the Writers House Planning Committee refers to itself as "the hub"—the core of engaged faculty, student, staff, and alumni volunteers from whom the House's creative energy and vitality radiates.

New and old Hub members alike are welcome to join us for pizza and a discussion of upcoming readings and programs, volunteer opportunities, and updates from project leaders. Anyone is welcome to join the Writers House Planning Committee. At this first meeting of the year we will discuss ways you can get involved at Writers House.

An evening of Spanish Translation with Edith Grossman and Rosalie Knecht

6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Edith Grossman is a translator, critic, and occasional teacher of literature in Spanish. She was born in Philadelphia, attended the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley, completed a PhD at New York University, and has been the recipient of awards and honors including Fulbright, Woodrow Wilson, and Guggenheim Fellowships, the PEN Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Queen Sofía Translation Prize, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Grossman has brought over into English poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by major Latin American writers, including Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Peninsular works that she has translated include Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, novels by Julián Ríos, Carmen Laforet, and Antonio Muñoz Molina, and poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her translation of the Soledades, by Luis de Góngora, will be published by Penguin Classics in July, 2011. She lives in Manhattan and has two sons, both of whom are musicians.

Rosalie Knecht grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and graduated from Oberlin College. Her translation of Cesar Aira's novel The Seamstress and the Wind, completed with the support of a Fulbright grant, was published by New Directions in June 2011. She's been interviewed on the Awl and "Marketplace of Ideas" on KCSB 91.9 and was invited to take part in the Writer-Translator series at Columbia University in November 2011. She lives in Brooklyn.

Tuesday, 4/17

WHENEVER WE FEEL LIKE IT PRESENTS

Marjorie Welish

7:00PM in the Arts Cafe

listen: to an audio recording of this event via PennSound.

Marjorie Welish is the author of The Annotated "Here" and Selected Poems, Word Group, Isle of the Signatories, and In the Futurity Lounge / Asylum for Indeterminacy (Spring 2012), all from Coffee House Press. The papers delivered at a conference on her writing and art held at the University of Pennsylvania were published in the book Of the Diagram: The Work of Marjorie Welish (Slought Books). In 2009, Granary Books published Oaths? Questions?, a collaborative artists' book by Marjorie Welish and James Siena which was the subject of a special exhibition at Denison University Museum, Granville, Ohio, and part of a two-year tour of artists' books throughout the United States. Her honors include the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Fellowship from Brown University, the Judith E. Wilson Visiting Poetry Fellowship at Cambridge University, and two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has held a Senior Fulbright Fellowship, which has taken her to the University of Frankfurt and to the Edinburgh College of Art. She is now Madelon Leventhal Rand Distinguished Lecturer in Literature at Brooklyn College.

Wednesday, 4/18

Creative Writing Contest Award Winners

in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

SPEAKEASY: POETRY, PROSE, AND ANYTHING GOES!

8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Our Speakeasy Open Mic Night is held once a month. We invite writers to share their work, or the work of others, in our Arts Cafe. Speakeasy welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your stand up comedy to share. You should expect outrageous (and free!) raffles for things you didn't know you needed, occasional costumes, and, of course, community members who love writing.

Thursday, 4/19

A conversation with Mirza Waheed and Suvir Kaul

Writers Without Borders

12:00 PM in the Arts Café

co-sponsored by: Department of South Asia Studies

RSVP: wh@writing.upenn.edu

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir. He moved to Delhi when he was eighteen to study English Literature at the University of Delhi and worked as a journalist in the city for four years. He came to London in 2001 to join the BBC's Urdu Service, where he now works as an editor. His critically acclaimed first novel The Collaborator is the story of a young man in the midst of the Kashmiri conflict of the early 1990s, which the Guardian has called "devastating," "haunting," and "gripping in its narrative drama."

A reading by Mirza Waheed

Writers Without Borders

6:00 PM in the Arts Café

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

7:00 to 8:30 PM in Room 202: A meeting of the Lacanians. For more information, contact Patricia Gherovici at pgherovici@aol.com.

Friday, 4/20

Saturday, 4/21

Sunday, 4/22

Monday, 4/23

A reading by John Barth

Kelly Writers House Fellows Program

6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe

rsvp: seating strictly limited; please rsvp to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-573-9749

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Funded by a grant from Paul Kelly, the Kelly Writers House Fellows program enables us to realize two unusual goals. We want to make it possible for the youngest writers and writer-critics to have sustained contact with authors of great accomplishment in an informal atmosphere. We also want to resist the time-honored distinction — more honored in practice than in theory — between working with eminent writers on the one hand and studying literature on the other.

John Barth's legacy of experimental fiction has earned him a dedicated following of readers in a career that has spanned seven decades. His self-conscious, self-parodying writing acknowledges its own fixation on meta-narrative. In one of his authorial voices, Barth writes: "Who wouldn't rather read a straight-on story-story, involving colorful characters doing interesting things in a 'dramatic' situation, instead of yet another peekaboo story-about-storying?"

Barth's first novel, The Floating Opera (1957), was nominated for the National Book Award. He was nominated again for his 1968 story collection Lost in the Funhouse, and he won the National Book Award in 1973 for his collection of postmodern novellas Chimera. He has been awarded grants from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. In 1997, he won the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Fiction, and in 1998 he was awarded the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Barth's experimental fiction has also won him praise for many other works, including The End of the Road, The Sot-Weed Factor, Giles Goat-Boy, The Development, and the forthcoming Every Third Thought: A Novel in Five Seasons. As William Pritchard writes in the New York Times, "Every sentence he writes either looks at itself askance or ushers in a following sentence that will perform the task. In his fascinated commitment to the art—and to the criticism—of storytelling, he has no rival."

Tuesday, 4/24

A brunch conversation with John Barth

Kelly Writers House Fellow

10:00 AM in the Arts Cafe

hosted by: Al Filreis

rsvp: seating strictly limited; please rsvp to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-573-9749

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Feminism/s Presents: Sister Spit Tour 2012

Featuring: Justin Bond, Brontez Purnell, Erin Markey, Cassie J. Sneider, Michelle Tea and Kit Yan

8:00 PM in the Arts Cafe

Co-Sponsored by: UPenn LGBT Center and Platt Performing Arts

RSVP required to: wh@writing.upenn.edu

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV.

listen: to an audio recording of this event.

Sister Spit is a legendary, raucous, rowdy performance gang featuring a vanload of multimedia, queer-centric brilliance. This multimedia explosion of taste-makers, novelists, luminaries, chanteuses, performance artist, poets, and filmmakers includes host Michelle Tea, singer/songwriter/transgender extravaganza Justin Vivian Bond, writer and musician Brontez Purnell, genius performer and playwright Erin Markey, comic artist and writer Cassie J. Sneider, and nationally- ranking slam poet Kit Yan.

Justin Vivian Bond

Brontez Purnell

Erin Markey

Cassie J. Sneider

Michelle Tea

Kit Yan

Recently described as "the greatest cabaret artist of (v's) generation" by Hilton Als in the New Yorker, singer, songwriter and Tony-nominated performance artist Mx Justin Vivian Bond [April 15 – 30, 2012], is an Obie, Bessie and Ethyl Eichelberger Award winner. V's debut EP Pink Slip was released in July 2009. In 2007 v premiered Justin Bond is Close To You, a reinterpretation of the Carpenter's classic album Close To You performed in its entirety in Central Park and subsequently presented by The Sydney Opera House in Australia and San Francisco's fabled Castro Theater. As one-half of the Performance duo Kiki and Herb, Justin Vivian has toured the world headlining at Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and has starred in a Tony nominated run on Broadway, Kiki and Herb Alive on Broadway (The Helen Hayes Theatre) and Off-Broadway Coup de Theatre (The Cherry Lane Theatre). Film credits include a starring role in John Cameron Mitchell's feature Shortbus, Charles Hermann-Wurmfeld's Fancy's Persuasion as well as Imaginary Heroes and Jon Moritsugu's Mod Fuck Explosion. Television appearances include Ugly Betty and Late Night With Conan O'Brian. Mx. Bond joins the tour April 15 – 27.

Brontez Purnell is a writer (columnist for Maximum Rock N Roll and the creator of FAG SCHOOL fanzine) a musician (Younger Lovers, ex-Gravy Train!!!), dancer (Brontez Purnell Dance Company). An Alabama native Mr. Purnell has spent much of the last decade in sunny Oakland, CA where he plots and hangs out making all the underground music and dance happenings. He is a Cancer, has a fetish for left-handed people, is currently working on his debut novella "Johnny, would you love me if my dick were bigger?", and will attend Witch School next year.

Erin Markey is a Brooklyn based writer/performer. She recently starred in the NYC premiere of Tennessee Williams' Green Eyes at the Hudson Hotel. She was a series regular on LOGO's Jeffery and Cole Casserole TV show. Her solo musical, Puppy Love: A Stripper's Tail played at PS 122 and toured with The Sex Workers Art Show. She is a company member of Half Straddle and her work in FAMILY was heralded as "the scariest performance of the year" in 2009 by Time Out NY. As a playwright, she was invited to the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and is currently developing her newest work, The Dardy Family Home Movies by Stephen Sondheim by Erin Markey, to premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival's Kinotek Series in the Fall of 2011. As a cabaret artist, she regularly presents work at Our Hit Parade with Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett and Neal Medlyn at Joe's Pub (The Public).

Cassie J. Sneider is a weirdo from Long Island who makes comic books. Her first real live book, Fine Fine Music, is being published in April 2011 by Raw Art Press. She enjoys driving long distances on very little sleep, competitive eating championships, and karaoke. Her celebrity crushes include Gordon Ramsay, Adam Richman, and the woman who played Crystal on Roseanne. She also sings for Electric Bubblebath, the greatest rockandroll band of all time.

Michelle Tea is the author of four memoirs, a collection of poetry and the novel Rose of No Man's Land. She has edited anthologies on fashion, class, personal narrative and lesbo-centric fiction. Her article on Beth Ditto and the Gossip (The Gossip Takes Paris) appeared in 2010 Best Music Writing. She co-founded Sister Spit's Ramblin' Road Show in the 90s and is the diabolical mind behind Sister Spit: Next Generation. She lives in San Francisco where she founded and is artistic director of queer literary arts organization, RADAR Productions. Tea recently completed an apocalyptic sci-fi novel, a young adult novel and co-wrote Coal To Diamonds with Beth Ditto.

As seen on HBO Documentary Asians Aloud, Kit Yan tell stories through slam poetry from the lens of a transgender Asian American from Hawaii now in New York. Kit's work has been taught coast to coast, from San Francisco State to Harvard. He has been seen speaking at the National Equality March, performing on the San Francisco Pride main stage, Creating Change, and is a nationally ranking slam poet. Kit is also the first ever and reigning Mr. Transman 2010. He has been seen on PBS' Asian in America, MYX TV, Autostraddle, and has received glowing reviews from New York Magazine, Bitch Magazine, and Curve Magazine.

Feminism/s is an interdisciplinary series exploring how art, criticism, political action, and community building can create structural and cultural solutions to gender hierarchies. Feminism/s seeks to amplify the multiplicity of voices engaged in the critique of the gender hierarchy, plant footprints in absence, slit the invisible veins of social construction, and learn about activist approaches. The series takes place at the Kelly Writers House, a collaborative freespace dedicated to the literary arts at the University of Pennsylvania.

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM in Room 209: Suppose an Eyes, a poetry group. For more information, contact Pat Green at patricia78@aol.com.
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM in room 202: Pennomicon writing group. For more information, contact pennomicon@comcast.net