September 2024
Sunday, 9/1
Monday, 9/2
Tuesday, 9/3
Wednesday, 9/4
Dear Penn Freshmen
7:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us at the Writers House for a public reading of some favorite "Dear Penn Freshmen" letters. You'll be able to pick up copies of our latest zine and meet members of the Signal Society, a community of developers, designers, writers, and everything in between, who aim to highlight the challenges that come with the Penn experience. "Dear Penn Freshmen" is a collection of letters written by Penn upperclassmen addressing their freshman year selves about things they wish they knew in their first year. This project is the brainchild of Adam Grant's 2016 Organizational Behavior class and is back in 2024 with a wave of fresh letters written by recently graduated Penn seniors.
These notes are filled with advice, anecdotes, and random thoughts in hopes that our experiences will make the first year at Penn just a tad bit easier for some readers and listeners. Freshmen, rest assured, feeling lonely, dropping pre-med, or not 'going Greek' doesn't mean the world is ending. Along the way, we hope our words will inspire a renewed environment built on curiosity, kindness, and humility and prioritize laughter, health, and the little things.
Thursday, 9/5
Armen Davoudian & Fatemeh Shams
A reading and conversation
5:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Armen Davoudian grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is the author of
the poetry collection The Palace of Forty Pillars (Tin House)
and the translator, from the Persian, of Hopscotch
by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse). His poems appear in the Atlantic,
Poetry, The Yale Review.
He is a PhD candidate in English and a Next Generation Scholar Fellow at Stanford University,
where he is writing a dissertation titled "Metanoia: How Poets Change Their Minds.”
Fatemeh Shams is the author of two books of poetry in Persian and
a critical monograph in English on poetry and politics,
A Revolution in Rhyme (Oxford UP).
When They Broke Down the Door (Mage, 2016),
a collection of her poems translated by Dick Davis, won the 2016 Latifeh Yarshater Award
from the Association for Iranian Studies. Her poetry has been featured in
Poetry magazine,
PBS NewsHour,
World Literature Today,
and the Penguin Book of Feminist Writing, among other venues.
She is Associate Professor of Persian Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
Friday, 9/6
Saturday, 9/7
Sunday, 9/8
Monday, 9/9
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
The Kelly Writers House is run collectively by members of its community, especially students. The Writers House Planning Committee — also known as "the Hub" — meets monthly to discuss Writers House projects and programs. Join us at this first meeting of the year to find out about some of the things we will work on this year, including our annual marathon reading, and to find out how you can get involved with community-led events and projects.
Tuesday, 9/10
Mamie Morgan: a reading and conversation
6:00 PM in person
hosted by: Jamie-Lee Josselyn
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Mamie Morgan lives on Edisto Island, South Carolina, with her
husband and their two dogs, Henrietta Modine and Wednesday Stewart. Her poems and essays
have appeared in
The Atlantic,
Oxford American,
Muzzle,
Washington Square Review,
Carolina Quarterly,
Fish Barrel Review,
Sixth Finch,
Four Way Review, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection,
Everyone I've Danced With Is Dead, was published by JackLeg Press (2024).
She also wrote a chapbook about her husband learning to draw during the pandemic.
It is quite literally titled:
My husband is learning to draw.
Mamie waitresses and owns a small, inclusivity and sustainability focused bridal shop.
Wednesday, 9/11
Subject Index: Emily Dickinson conceals Iain Morrison
A durational performance
1:00 PM – 6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
In this latest performance of Subject Index, Iain Morrison will read aloud from Emily Dickinson’s work, wearing a simulacrum of her iconic white dress. Audience members and onlookers are welcome to come and eavesdrop as they please, while Morrison maps his own subjective index of Dickinson’s poems in a spreading nest of scribbled paper. Thomas H. Johnson’s 1955 Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson contains a fascinating subject index that aims to help readers find half-remembered poems via loose keyword categorization. This quixotic attempt to systematize and filter the poems inspired Morrison to subject himself to be ‘read’ by these poems first over a week-long event in an abandoned Edinburgh office building in 2013, and then again in a Berlin subway station in 2014. In these and in each subsequent environment where he has performed this work, Morrison has echoed the myths of Dickinson’s elective seclusion, playing with concealment and partial reveals in improvised domestic-within-public spaces.
Iain Morrison is a poet based in Edinburgh, Scotland where he is part of Fruitmarket art centre’s curatorial team. His collection I’m a Pretty Circler was shortlisted for the Saltire Poetry Prize in 2019. He was ArtfulScribe writer-in-residence at University of Southampton throughout 2018. Performances include an award-winning night of drag queen poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library, and with Leiza McLeod a sung staging of women’s writing from the Beat Generation given at Bristol Poetry Festival. Iain studied music at the University of Cambridge and his practice moves between artforms, often ending up in a gallery.
Thursday, 9/12
A reading by Iain Morrison
6:00 PM in person
hosted by: Laynie Browne
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Iain Morrison is a poet based in Edinburgh, Scotland where
he is part of Fruitmarket art centre's curatorial team. His collection
I'm a Pretty Circler was shortlisted for the Saltire Poetry
Prize in 2019. He was ArtfulScribe writer-in-residence at University of Southampton
throughout 2018. Performances include an award-winning night of drag queen poetry at
the Scottish Poetry Library, and with Leiza McLeod a sung staging of women's writing
from the Beat Generation given at Bristol Poetry Festival. Iain studied music at the
University of Cambridge and his practice moves between artforms, often ending up in a
gallery.
Friday, 9/13
Saturday, 9/14
Sunday, 9/15
Monday, 9/16
YA Novelist Candice Iloh
DeMarco Program
6:00 PM in person
Co-sponsored by: the Creative Writing Program
rsvp: register here to attend in person
candice iloh is the award-winning author of young adult novels,
Every Body Looking,
Break This House,
Salt the Water.
A 2020 National Book Award Finalist and 2021 Printz Honoree, iloh is a first-generation
Nigerian-American writer whose books center home. In 2018, they were awarded a
Critical Breaks residency with Hi-ARTS to develop and perform a one-night-only stage production
of ADA: On Stage, a multi-media one-person-show, introducing
the audience to in-progress themes of their now critically-acclaimed debut novel.
They are a proud alum of the Rhode Island Writers Colony and their work has earned
fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, Kimbilio Fiction and, most recently,
The PEW Center for Arts & Heritage for 2023-2025. iloh is a former high school creative
writing teacher who has previously taught young people of every age, from pre-K through high school.
Their debut picture book, EMEKA: EAT EGUSI! will be published
by Simon & Schuster in 2026.
Tuesday, 9/17
Small Ball (the musical)
A conversation about sports narratives and musical theater
6:00 PM in person
sponsored by: Creative Ventures
registration required (seating limited): register here
Join us for a discussion of the musical Small Ball. With book and lyrics by Mickle Maher, and music by the avant-rock duo Anthony Barilla and Merel van Dijk, Small Ball was birthed from the question: "What about a basketball musical?" Taking place in a world six months from today where every myth, every fairytale, and every work of fantasy fiction has been discovered to be real, Small Ball is the story of Michael Jordan (not the Michael Jordan), a down-on-his-luck journeyman basketball player who finds himself playing point guard for a newly formed basketball team of six inch tall players on the isle of Lilliput from Gulliver’s Travels. Is there mystery yet in this world of Great Disenchantment? The wildly comic and strange trip of love, loss, colonialist politics around very tiny people, and poor sportsmanship that is Small Ball, says Yes.
Wednesday, 9/18
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.
Thursday, 9/19
Co-op Journalism
Applebaum Editors and Publishers Program
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
In recent years, a number of journalists have forged a new path — creating worker-owned,
cooperative journalism outlets. Join us for a panel discussion featuring four worker-owners — Kelsey McKinney
from Defector, Riley MacLeod from Aftermath,
Esther Wang from Hell Gate, and Abigail Higgins from The 51st, with
Max Rivlin-Nadler, also of Hell Gate, moderating. They'll discuss their experiences
— and challenges — in forming and maintaining these new publications.
Abigail Higgins is a co-founder of The 51st, a new worker-led local news organization in Washington, D.C. She covers poverty, inequality, gender, health, and labor for publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NPR, and The Nation. She worked as an editor at DCist and WAMU and as a foreign correspondent in East Africa for a decade. As the First Vice President of the National Writers Union, she’s working to improve conditions for freelance journalists and other precarious workers.
Riley MacLeod is the editor and co-founder of Aftermath, a worker-owned news outlet covering video games and internet culture. He previously worked at The Washington Post, first leading the games desk Launcher and then as a member of The Post's Next Generation Audiences initiative, and was managing editor of gaming site Kotaku. In another life he worked in publishing as editor of Topside Press, an award-winning independent press focused on transgender fiction.
Kelsey McKinney is a reporter and writer who lives in Philadelphia. She is a co-owner and features writer at Defector.com. Her first novel, God Spare The Girls, was published in the summer of 2021. She is the host and writer of the podcast Normal Gossip, and her first non-fiction book You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip is out in 2025.
Max Rivlin-Nadler is a co-publisher of Hell Gate. He’s reported for Gothamist, The New York Times, Village Voice and NPR. His award-winning reporting has led to the release of people from prison and immigration custody.
Esther Wang is a co-founder of Hell Gate, a journalist-owned, worker-run New York City news, politics, and culture outlet. Previously, she was a senior reporter at Jezebel.
Friday, 9/20
Saturday, 9/21
Sunday, 9/22
Monday, 9/23
Alina Grabowski: a reading and conversation
Cheryl J. Family Fiction Program
6:00 PM in the Arts Café
hosted by: Jamie-Lee Josselyn and Karen Rile
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Join us for a conversation with Alina Grabowski (C’16), who will discuss her debut novel Women and Children First. Told through the eyes of ten local women, Women and Children First is an exquisite portrait of grief and a powerful reminder of life’s interconnectedness. Touching on womanhood, class, sexuality, ambition, disappointment, and tragedy, this novel is a stunning rendering of love and loss, and a bracing lesson that no one walks this earth alone.
Alina Grabowski (C’16) grew up in coastal Massachusetts and holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University. Her writing has appeared in Story, The Masters Review, Joyland, The Adroit Journal, and Day One. She has received scholarships from Aspen Summer Words, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Tuesday, 9/24
A conversation with Meredith Scardino
Hartman Screenwriting Series
6:00 PM in the Arts Café
hosted by: Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Meredith Scardino is the creator and showrunner of the Emmy-nominated comedy series, Girls5eva, currently in its third season on Netflix. Prior to which, she worked as a writer-producer on the entire run of the critically-acclaimed Tina Fey, Robert Carlock series, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She got her start in comedy writing in late night and spent six years writing for The Colbert Report, where she won four Emmys, three Writers Guild Awards, and a Peabody. She has also written for Saturday Night Live, At Home with Amy Sedaris, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Golden Globe Awards, and began her career working as a cartoonist and animator. Scardino lives in New York City with her partner, son (who inspired the Girls5eva song “New York Lonely Boy”), and loyal hound.
Wednesday, 9/25
Jim Rutenberg & Dick Polman in conversation
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Jim Rutenberg is a New York Times staff writer who specializes in the intersection of media and politics. A proud native of Philadelphia, he joined the Times in early 2000 after working for several NYC papers, including The New York Post, The New York Daily News, and The New York Observer. At the Times, he has covered the TV industry, the media in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, the mayoralty of Michael R. Bloomberg, the White House during George W. Bush’s second term, and the 2012 presidential campaign.
Poet Peter Gizzi
With student opener Jillian Troth
But Company reading series
6:00 PM in the Arts Café
hosted by: Michelle Taransky
rsvp: register here to attend in person
PETER GIZZI is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Fierce Elegy (2023), Now It’s Dark (2020), and Archeophonics (2016), a finalist for the National Book Award, all from Wesleyan. In 2020 Carcanet published Sky Burial: New and Selected Poems and in 2024 Penguin UK published an expanded edition of Fierce Elegy. His honors include fellowships from The Rex Foundation, The Howard Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Guggenheim Foundation, and The Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Cambridge. In 2018 Wesleyan published In the Air: Essays on the Poetry of Peter Gizzi. Editing projects have included o•blēk: a journal of language arts (1987-1993); The Exact Change Yearbook (Exact Change/ Carcanet, 1995); The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan, 1998); and with the late Kevin Killian, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan, 2008). He teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jillian Troth is a Senior in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Neuroscience and somewhat accidentally minoring in Creative Writing, GSWS, and Chemistry. She has been writing poetry ever since she learned to read and has no intention to ever stop. Jillian aspires to become a psychiatrist and believes that neuroscience and poetry may have more to do with each other than we like to think. In her free time, she enjoys antiquing, backpacking, practicing film photography, trying to keep her plants alive, and playing with her dog, Bowie.
Thursday, 9/26
CAREERS IN JOURNALISM AND MEDIA
Nora Magid Mentorship Prize panel
Jill Castellano, Matt Flegenheimer, Beatrice Forman, Ashley Parker, and Sarah Smith
5:30 PM in person
organized and hosted by: The Nora Magid Mentorship Advisory Committee
co-sponsored by: Career Services, the Creative Writing Program, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and Povich Journalism Program Fund
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Hoping to work in journalism, media, or publishing after college? Join us for a discussion of career paths, internships, grad school, and more, organized by the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize Advisory Committee and featuring a group of alumni journalists, writers, and editors. The conversation will focus 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. For more info about the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize and a full list of winners, visit the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize page.
Jill Castellano is the Data/Investigations Editor at ConsumerAffairs. She has worked for The Salt Lake Tribune, The Desert Sun, inewsource and USA TODAY, earning a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2018 for her work on the deaths of undocumented border crossers. Jill graduated from Penn with degrees in psychology and criminology and was editor-in-chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian.
Matt Flegenheimer (C'11) is a correspondent at the New York Times. His primary focus is long-form profiles of notable figures –in politics and otherwise – for the Times and Times Magazine. Since joining the paper in 2011, he has covered two presidential campaigns, the Trump era in Washington, New York City transportation and City Hall.
Beatrice Forman is a reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she gets paid to cover her two favorite things: How people make meaning on the internet, and Taylor Swift. She also handles breaking news. Beatrice graduated from Penn in 2022 with degrees in communications and political science. A former 34th Street editor-in-chief, Beatrice also served as the diversity chair of The Daily Pennsylvanian, where she co-created a fellowship program for BIPOC student journalists committed to advancing equity and inclusion at the newspaper. Beatrice was previously deputy editor of Billy Penn and a newsletter editor for CNN pundit Michael Smerconish. In her spare time, Beatrice coordinates a collaborative of newsrooms dedicated to covering threats to democracy and is a loving aunt to all of her friends' pets.
Ashley Parker is senior national political correspondent for the Washington Post, and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Most recently, she served as the White House bureau chief, covering the first two years of the Biden presidency, as well as the entirety of the Trump presidency. In 2019, Parker served as one of the moderators for the Democratic presidential primary debate in Atlanta, hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC, and she is an NBC/MSNBC senior political analyst. She joined the Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns, and Congress, among other things.
Sarah Smith is a senior reporter with the Houston Chronicle focused on immersive narrative storytelling. Past lives have found her at ProPublica, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Associated Press. She's written everything from investigations into church sexual abuse, the failures of public housing oversight, and Mississippi's struggles to provide mental health evaluations to a narrative story told entirely in the second person and a piece with no fewer than five metaphors for the weather. She won first place in the national Society of Features Journalism contest for general features portfolio, was a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism and a finalist for the Livingston Award. She somehow graduated from Penn in 2015 with a double major in English and Political Science after spending most of her days in the Daily Pennsylvanian office instead of going to class. Whatever she's doing, she'd probably rather be reading with a snack.
Friday, 9/27
Saturday, 9/28
Sunday, 9/29
Monday, 9/30
Live at the Writers house
a monthly radio show produced in collaboration with WXPN
6:30 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
LIVE at the Writers House is a long-standing collaboration of the people of the Kelly Writers House and of WXPN (88.5 FM). Six times annually between September and April, the Writers House records a one-hour show of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art for broadcast by WXPN. LIVE at the Writers House is edited by Zach Carduner and produced by Alli Katz. The show is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc.