September 2016
Thursday, 9/1
Friday, 9/2
Saturday, 9/3
Sunday, 9/4
Monday, 9/5
Tuesday, 9/6
City Planning Poetics 2: What are the tools that shape the built environment? Where did they come from? How have they been used?
Creative Ventures program
6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
City Planning Poetics is a semesterly series that invites one or more poets or more planners, designers, planning historians, or others working in the field of city planning to discuss a particular topic central to their work, to ask each other questions, and to read from their current projects.
FRANCESCA RUSSELLO AMMON is an assistant professor of City & Regional Planning and Historic Preservation in the School of Design. A cultural historian of the urban built environment, she has published articles on topics including urban renewal, gentrification, and children's books about destruction. Her recent book, Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape (Yale, 2016), traces the transformation of this iconic machine from wartime weapon to instrument of postwar planning. As a Mellon Researcher at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, she is now beginning a new project on the role of photographs in shaping postwar historic preservation and urban renewal.
JASON MITCHELL is most recently the author of FIELD for Peter Culley (self-published 2015) and is the host and coordinator of the Philadelphia reading series Frank O'Hara's Last Lover. His writing can be found in Hi Zero, Court Green, Jacket 2, and Stolen Island among others.
Wednesday, 9/7
A conversation with Sharon Hayes and Brooke O'Harra
Creative Ventures program
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
In 1999, BROOKE O'HARRA co-founded, with composer Brendan Connelly, the NYC-based The Theatre of a Two-headed Calf. The ensemble-driven company layers various theatrical styles, texts and musical forms for unexpected experiences such as the 1970s punk rock-inspired adaptation of the 18th-century, Chikamatsu play Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (OBIE Award, 2007), or the re-imagined take on chamber opera and motherhood, You, My Mother (2012). As part of the Dyke Division of Two-headed Calf, she conceived, directed, wrote, and performed the popular lesbian soap opera Room For Cream, (La Mama, 2008-2011). In addition to developing and directing all 14 of the Two-headed Calf productions, she is also a freelance director with multiple honors including a Doris Duke Performing Artists Impact Award in 2015. She recently developed a new musical with Lisa D'Amour and composer Brendan Connelly titled Jack Spicer's Billy the Kid. Brooke is currently working on a nine-part performance project titled I'm Bleeding All Over the Place: Studies in Directing or Nine Encounters Between Me and You; the first three performances were developed at The New Museum, NYC in 2014. The fourth part I'm Bleeding All Over the Place: A Living History Tour will run as a performance tour for 12 days (fifty tours) in June 2016 at La Mama ETC. She also has an ongoing collaborative performance, Time Passes, with visual artist Sharon Hayes.
SHARON HAYES engages multiple mediums–video, performance, and installation–in ongoing investigation into specific intersections between history, politics and speech. These relationships are central to all of her work from the 2003 performance and video installation: Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Screeds #13, 16, 20 & 29, a re-speaking of each of the four audio tapes made by Patty Hearst and the SLA during the period of Hearst's kidnapping to her recent work Ricerche, a large-scale video investigation that steps off of Pier Paolo Pasolini's brilliant film, Comizi d'Amore. Hayes' work is concerned with developing new representational strategies that examine and interrogate the present political moment as a moment that reaches simultaneously backward and forward; a present moment that is never wholly its own but rather one that is full of multiple past moments and the speculations of multiple futures. From this ground, Hayes often addresses political events or movements from the 1960s through the 1990s. Her focus on the particular sphere of the near-past is influenced by the potent imbrication of private and public urgencies that she experienced in her own foundational encounters with feminism and AIDS activism. Hayes has had recent solo exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York), Tanya Leighton Gallery (Berlin), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid). Her work been shown at the Venice Biennale (2013), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim Museum (New York) and numerous museums and venues in Europe and the Americas. Hayes is also a recipient of the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2013), an Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2013), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship (2007) among other awards.
She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania.
Thursday, 9/8
Multilingual Poetics: Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte
Writers Without Borders
6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
PIERRE JORIS, while raised in Luxembourg, has moved between Europe, the U.S. & North Africa for half a century now, publishing close to 50 books of poetry, essays, translations and anthologies. Forthcoming in early 2016 is An American Suite (poems) from Inpatient Press. In 2014 he published Barzakh — Poems 2000-2012 (Black Widow Press); Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poems of Paul Celan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) which received the 2015 ALTA National Translation Award; A Voice full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly (co-edited with Peter Cockelbergh, Contra Mundum Press); and Bernat Manciet's Ode to James Dean (co-translated from Occitan with Nicole Peyrafitte; mindmade books). 2013 had brought Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj (poems) from Chax Press & The University of California Book of North African Literature (vol. 4 in the Poems for the Millennium series), coedited with Habib Tengour (UCP). 2011 saw the publication of Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-between, edited by Peter Cockelbergh, with essays on Joris' work by, among others, Mohamed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Jean Portante, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff & Nicole Peyrafitte (Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, 2011). Other recent books include Exile is My Trade: A Habib Tengour Reader edited, introduced & translated by Pierre Joris (Black Widow Press, 2012); The Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials by Paul Celan (Stanford U.P. 2011) which received the 2012 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work; Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 (Salt Books); Aljibar I & II (Poems, Editions PHI). Further translations include Paul Celan: Selections (UC Press) & Lightduress by Paul Celan which received the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Books of Modern & Postmodern Poetry. Pierre Joris lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with his wife, performance artist Nicole Peyrafitte. Check out his website & Nomadics Blog.
NICOLE PEYRAFITTE is a pluridisciplinary artist born and raised in the Gascony part of the French Pyrenees & residing in Brooklyn with poet Pierre Joris with whom she often collaborates, as she does tonight. Her texts, voice-work, paintings, videos, & (on occasion) her cooking are displayed in a range of multi-lingual & multi-faceted performances. Peyrafitte's work is informed & characterized by a daily practice — a quest for life in art and art in life between two continents & four languages. Her latest projects are: Things Fall Where They Lie a docu-vérité film in pre-production; LandscOpe a collection of texts & photographs— publication 2016. Recent publications include Bi-Valve : Vulvic Space/Vulvic Knowledge, 17 paintings, 17 multilingual texts, 1 recipe & 1 CD (Stockport Flats, 2013). She has performed all over the world, including at The Metropolitan Museum (NYC), the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Poets House (NYC), The Poetry Project (NYC), Beyond Baroque (L.A), Bard College (N.Y), Bergen University (Norway), Birbeck College at the University of London (UK), University of Edinburgh (UK), Center for Contemporary Art Glasgow (UK), Festival Occitania & Cave Poésie (Toulouse-France), Estivada de Rodez (France), the Universities of Bordeaux & Angoulème (France); Festival Des Voix Vives de Sète (France), Festival des Voix de la Méditerranée, Lodève (France), Université de Bruxelles (Belgium), and Anthology Film Archives (NYC). In 2012 she wrote & co-directed the documentary film Basil King: MIRAGE with Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. For more information: www.nicolepeyrafitte.com.
Friday, 9/9
Kelly Writers House Activities Fair
12:00 PM - 4:00 PM throughout the house
The Kelly Writers House Activities Fair is an opportunity for new and returning students to explore the House. We'll have t-shirt and book giveaways, writing stations, and plenty of ways for you to meet student leaders of various writing initiatives (literacy outreach, Penn magazines, writing exchange groups, and more).
Saturday, 9/10
Sunday, 9/11
Monday, 9/12
Writers House Planning Committee Meeting
5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
RSVP: 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.
Tuesday, 9/13
David Grann and Stephen Metcalf
Povich Journalism program
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
A conversation hosted by Al Filreis
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
DAVID GRANN is a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Lost City of Z. Named one of the best books of the year by the Times, the Washington Post, and other publications, it has been translated into more than twenty languages and made into a major motion picture. He is also the author of The Devil and Sherlock Holmes and the upcoming book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which is about one of the most sinister crimes in American history. His investigative reporting and writing have garnered several awards, including a George Polk.
STEPHEN METCALF is critic-at-large and columnist at Slate magazine. He is also the host of the magazine's weekly cultural podcast the Culture Gabfest, which features Metcalf along with Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, and special guests, in conversation about movies, books, TV, and more. Metcalf's work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer and New York (magazine), among many other outlets. Currently, he is writing a book about the 1980s.
Wednesday, 9/14
Speakeasy Open Mic Night
7:30 in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
Our student-run open mic night 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.
Thursday, 9/15
Aversive Prose: a panel
Charles Bernstein, Julia Bloch, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Eric Keenaghan, Josephine Park, Evie Shockley
11:00 AM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
Tired of addressing a significant problem in literature and drawing out its implications (to quote loosely from PMLA's submissions guidelines)? This event is for those of us who want to turn away from academic writing.
"Aversive Prose" is CHARLES BERNSTEIN's preferred phrase for an exceptional prose whose genealogy spans the ancient essay and the experimental manifesto -- and which cuts against today's scholarly prose. Aversive: opposed, turned away, disinclined, warding off -- notably including a sensation of repugnance. This conversation will be a bit of aversion therapy against a scholarly addiction.
Having each averted our thoughts from the standard of scholarly prose, we come together to think about platforms for, and the roads beyond, our collective disgust. Is there a new (or old) politics of style to be claimed through aversive thinking and wordcraft? Where do we go once we have turned away from the voice expected of us? Who are the new audiences—that is to say, the real people—we, with our new voices, write both to and for?
RSVP at wh@writing.upenn.edu or 215-746-POEM.
Penn and Pencil Club reading
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
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A reading of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, written by members of the PENN AND PENCIL CLUB, a creative writing workshop for Penn staff from a variety of backgrounds and university departments.
Friday, 9/16
Saturday, 9/17
Sunday, 9/18
Monday, 9/19
Media Day: Opportunities on campus
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
moderated by: Dick Polman
RSVP: wh@writing.upenn.edu or (215) 746-POEM
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
For students considering a career in media or looking to add to their reporting, story-telling and networking skills, this roundtable discussion with Penn alumni, faculty, and students will offer information about Penn's journalism minor and strategies for exploring nonfiction courses, independent studies, grants, prizes, and internships, including information about RealArts@Penn program.
JESSICA GOODMAN is a digital news editor at Entertainment Weekly, where she covers music and books. She graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism in 2013.
TAYLOR HOSKING is a senior majoring in Urban Studies with a passion for political journalism. On campus she's written for IMPACT Magazine and performed her spoken-word poetry as a member of The Excelano Project. In Philly, she has interned with the News and Politics desk of PhillyMag.com and the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her work focuses largely on systemic discrimination and inter-cultural dialogue.
CASEY QUACKENBUSH is a senior from Connecticut studying history and journalism. At Penn, she served four semesters as an editor and writer for 34th Street, and completed an independent study in journalism with Professor Stephen Fried. Last summer she interned as a reporter for The New York Observer's arts and culture section. This summer she held a reporting fellowship at Time in Hong Kong. She also received KWH's Heled Research and Travel Grant to investigate cheese-making on Mont Blanc.
LAINE HIGGINS is a college senior from Minneapolis, Minn., majoring in International Relations with a Journalistic Writing minor. At Penn she served as a sports editor at the Daily Pennsylvanian for three semesters, took an independent study in journalism with Professor Stephen Fried, and is a captain of the women's swim and dive team. During the summers she interned at USA Today Sports, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Sports Illustrated.
AVERY ROME is a longtime journalist, editor and teacher. She worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1979 to 2012, serving as a top editor in charge of projects and writing. For 11 years she was the editor of Inquirer Magazine. During her newspaper career she won 40 awards, and projects she guided into print won over 200 prizes. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she began teaching writing and journalism at Penn in 2006 and shortly thereafter began coaching Wharton MBA students in writing. Since she left the Inquirer, she has edited fiction and nonfiction books, plays and screenplays. She also helps grow fresh produce for the West Chester Food Cupboard at Rushton Farm in Chester County.
Media Day: Careers in media
Co-sponsored by The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Nora Magid Mentorship Prize, and the Povich Journalism Fund
5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
Our annual Careers in Media alumni panel — sponsored by KWH, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize — focuses on how you can prepare for first jobs and careers in print, broadcast and online media, publishing, and related fields, as well as how to make decisions about extracurriculars, internships and grad school in these areas. This year’s panel includes Jessica Sidman (’08), food editor at Washingtonian magazine; Maria Popova (C’07), the founder and brains behind Brainpickings.com; Jessica Goodman (C’12), the digital news editor of Entertainment Weekly; David Borgenicht (C ‘90), bestselling nonfiction author, and owner and publisher of Quirk Books; and moderator Stephen Fried (’79), award-winning journalist and bestselling author who teaches at Penn and Columbia J-School and mentors longform nonfiction writers.
At the this panel you’ll also learn more about the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize for the top senior nonfiction writer/editor, and other opportunities for internships and networking.
THE NORA MAGID MENTORSHIP PRIZE is given each year to a senior at the University of Pennsylvania who shows exceptional ability and promise in writing/reporting/editing, and who would benefit most from combined mentorship of Nora's network of former students and their colleagues in traditional and new media. The prize is $3000 to be used however the student chooses for their professional development—including being used as a stipend for post-grad internships that require one. The winner also receives unparalleled access to a constantly growing network of Penn alumni—including Nora's former students and over a decade of Nora Prize-winners—as well as their extensive web of colleagues who can assist in the student’s career. It is open to all seniors at Penn, although preference is given to those who expect to attempt to make careers in some form of media.
DAVID BORGENICHT (C'90) is the CEO and owner of Philadelphia book publisher Quirk Books, co-author of the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. Quirk publishes 25 books a year, including international best-seller Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.
JESSICA GOODMAN (C'12) is a Digital News Editor at Entertainment Weekly, where she runs the music and books sections of EW.com. Previously, she was an Entertainment Editor at The Huffington Post, and has written for the Village Voice, Mashable, NYMag.com and Noisey.
MARIA POPOVA (C'07) is a reader and writer, and writes about what she reads on her Brain Pickings blog, which is included in the Library of Congress archive of culturally valuable materials. She has also written for Wired UK and The Atlantic, The New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine. In 2012, she was named among the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company Magazine.
STEPHEN FRIED (C'79) (moderator) is a best-selling and award-winning journalist who teaches non-fiction writing at Penn and the Journalism School at Columbia University. He is a former contributing editor at Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour and Philadelphia Magazine.
Tuesday, 9/20
No Line Breaks: student prose reading
Peter LaBerge, Emily Schwartz, Zoe Stoller, Rebecca Tan, Sarah Wilson, and Jeffrey Yang
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
PETER LABERGE is a senior studying English and consumer psychology. He is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Makeshift Cathedral (YesYes Books, 2017) and Hook (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). His poetry and prose appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Iowa Review, Pleiades, and Sixth Finch, among others. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Bucknell University Stadler Center for Poetry and the founder and editor-in-chief of The Adroit Journal.
EMILY SCHWARTZ is a sophomore in the College planning to major in English with a concentration in creative writing. A Chicago native, Emily has worked for the Chicago Tribune-sponsored publication The Mash, where her work was picked up by The Huffington Post. At Penn, Emily enjoys writing for 34th Street Magazine where she currently serves as the Entertainment Editor, was formerly a Film and TV Reporter and is known for her feature story “The Sound of Silence.” Emily has been published in other campus magazines including The WALK.
ZOE STOLLER is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Assistant Poetry Editor for Cleaver Magazine and the Web Editor for The Adroit Journal. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Cleaver Magazine, DIALOGIST, Fissure Magazine, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and Word Riot, among others. In addition, one of her one act plays was produced in a theatre festival Off-Broadway.
REBECCA TAN is a sophomore from Singapore studying English and History. In Singapore, her work has appeared in The Straits Times Newspaper, Vulture Magazine and the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. At Penn, Rebecca is a writer for Impact Magazine and the Daily Pennsylvanian. She believes strongly in the value of quality journalism and hopes one day to write something of meaning for the communities she cares about.
SARAH WILSON is a senior in the college majoring in English and World History. She is president of Penn's standup comedy collective, Simply Chaos, and a University Scholar conducting oral history research in the Detroit area. Narrative journalism and sketch and standup comedy are her favorite writing genres.
JEFFREY YANG is a sophomore studying Economics in the College and Wharton. He makes time for fiction writing--one of his greatest passions since early childhood--by taking workshop classes whenever he can, and through his involvement with student publications. Since coming to Penn, he has worked as both the Prose Editor for Symbiosis Magazine and the Design Director for 34th Street Magazine.
Wednesday, 9/21
Supplement Launch Party
hosted by Ariel Resnikoff and Orchid Tierney
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
Supplement is a new annual anthology of poetry, poetics, visual art and innovative writing, published by the Creative Writing Program and Kelly Writers House at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (University of Pennsylvania). A constituent of Jacket2, PennSound, and the various reading series at KWH, Supplement v.1 documents the diverse contemporary poetry and poetics scenes in and around Philadelphia by primarily soliciting work from writers who have performed in the Philadelphia area in 2015-16.
Our inaugural volume includes work from Rachel Blau Duplessis, John Yau, Yolanda Wisher, Bill Berkson, Jena Osman, Frank Sherlock, Tracie Morris, CA Conrad, Rachel Zolf, Charles Bernstein, Anna Maria Hong, Rae Armantrout, Joseph Massey, Laynie Brown, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Susan Bee, Rachel Levitsky, Paolo Javier, Alex Tarampi, Francie Shaw, Tsitsi Jaji, Bob Perelman, Juliana Spahr, Julia Bloch, Thomas Devaney, Patricia Spears Jones, Michael Davidson, Rodrigo Toscano, Kristen Gallagher, erica kaufman, William J. Harris, Anne Tardos, Jerome Rothenberg, Jennifer Scappettone and Pierre Joris, among many others. Please join us in celebrating the launch of Supplement v.1 with a special reading and reception at the Kelly Writers House.
Thursday, 9/22
War Stories: Veterans Writing About Iraq and Afghanistan
RealArts@Penn program
5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
America's long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have defined a generation even as the gap between soldier and civilian widens. What does literature have to say about these complicated conflicts and their legacy? With post-9/11 veteran and novelist Matt Gallagher (and excerpts from veteran and novelist Elliot Ackerman), we will look at how and why war literature matters today.
BRIAN CASTNER is a nonfiction writer, former Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, and veteran of the Iraq War. He is the bestselling author of All the Ways We Kill and Die, and the war memoir The Long Walk, which was adapted into an opera and named an Amazon Best Book for 2012. He is a contributing writer to VICE, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, Foreign Policy, Buzzfeed, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and on National Public Radio. He has twice received grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, to cover the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in 2014, and to paddle the 1200 mile Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean in 2016. His next project, a co-edited collection of short stories, is titled The Road Ahead, and will be published in January.
MATT GALLAGHER is the author of the novel Youngblood, published in February 2016 by Atria/Simon & Schuster. Reviewing for The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote of Youngblood, "On one level, the novel is a parable - with overtones of Graham Greene's The Quiet American - about the United States and Iraq and the still unfurling consequences of the war ... Mr. Gallagher has a keen reportorial eye, a distinctive voice and an instinctive sympathy for the people he is writing about ... [This] is an urgent and deeply moving novel." A former U.S. Army captain, Matt's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review Daily and Playboy, among other places. He's also the author of the Iraq memoir Kaboom and coeditor of, and contributor to, the short fiction collection Fire & Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. In 2015, Gallagher was featured in Vanity Fair as one of the voices of a new generation of American war literature. A graduate of Wake Forest University, Matt also holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn and works as a writing instructor at Words After War, a literary nonprofit devoted to bringing veterans and civilians together to study conflict literature.
KILEY BENSE is a writer and journalist whose literary nonfiction focuses on the intersections of history, memory, and family. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Departures, and Saveur, among others. She is currently at work on a book about World War II and the lasting consequences of trauma. Kiley holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's from the Columbia School of Journalism. Read her work at kileybense.com.
Friday, 9/23
Saturday, 9/24
Sunday, 9/25
Monday, 9/26
LIVE at the Writers House
7:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
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 airs a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, along with one musical guest -- from our Arts Cafe onto the airwaves at WXPN. "LIVE" is broadcast on WXPN. "LIVE" is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc and is produced by Alli Katz.
Tuesday, 9/27
A poetry reading by Bhanu Kapil
Creative Writing Program
hosted by Lucas de Lima
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
BHANU KAPIL writes, lately, in [into] the axial space of diasporic and institutional trauma. Currently, she is writing "a novel on yellow paper." Her most recent published work is a set of notes for a novel never written: Ban en Banlieue (Nightboat Books, 2015).
Wednesday, 9/28
Lunch with Uri Friedman
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu or call (215) 746-POEM
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
URI FRIEDMAN is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers global affairs. He was previously the editor of The Atlantic's Global section and the deputy managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine.
Edible Books party
Creative Ventures program
5:00 PM throughout the first floor
Our Edible Book Contest will celebrate works of art inspired by books and created in kitchens. Past entries have included (somewhat) literal depictions of literary characters or scenes, punny interpretations of book titles, or cake-sculptures of actual books. Prizes will be awarded in a variety of categories (such as best pun, most literary, most literal, yummiest, most architectural, least appetizing). All are welcome to join the festival, to browse the library of edible titles, or to contribute their own.
Thursday, 9/29
BRODSKY GALLERY OPENING: DAMAGE WITHOUT INJURY
Works by Lindsay Buchman
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event
listen: to an audio recording of this event
Damage Without Injury is an exhibition featuring LINDSAY BUCHMAN's interdisciplinary work spanning photography, artist books and writing, centering the themes of private and public memory in conversation with the archive.
The BRODSKY GALLERY is an art gallery integrated with the ground floor of the Writers House. Up to six exhibitions take place during the academic year from September through May. Openings feature a reception for the artist and an accompanying program; examples include panel discussions, poetry readings, film screenings, and technique demonstrations by the artist. Through exhibiting a diverse array of art media and cross-disciplinary programming, the Brodsky Gallery at KWH seeks to engage Penn students and the broader Philadelphia community with the interrelationships between literary and visual arts. Thanks to the generosity of MICHAEL and HEIDI BRODSKY, whose support makes our gallery space possible, the Brodsky Gallery is a permanent project of Kelly Writers House.