October 2021
Friday, 10/1
Saturday, 10/2
Sunday, 10/3
Monday, 10/4
Independent Publishers — a conversation with Cindy Spiegel
Applebaum Publishers and Editors Program
5:30 PM in the KWH Garden and on Youtube
watch: here
Cindy Spiegel is co-CEO of Spiegel & Grau, an independent publishing company that was previously an imprint of Penguin Random House. Before that she was Publisher of Riverhead Books, where she was a founding editor. Among the writers whose careers she launched are James McBride, Bryan Stevenson, Khaled Hosseini, Chang-rae Lee, Gary Shteyngart, Philipp Meyer, ZZ Packer, Alex Garland, Danzy Senna, and Sana Krasikov; and she has also edited and published books by Yuval Noah Harari, Yann Martel, Sara Gruen, Harold Bloom, Ari Shavit, Dan Pink, Steven Rinella, Anne Lamott, and many others. She sits on the board of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and on the advisory board of Columbia Global Reports. She graduated from Penn as an English major and has an MA in Comparative Literature from U.C., Berkeley.
Tuesday, 10/5
A reading by Marc Anthony Richardson and Vi Khi Nao
Cheryl J. Family Fiction Program
6:00 PM (ET) in the KWH Garden and on Youtube
co-sponsored by: Blue Stoop
watch: here
Vi Khi Nao’s work includes poetry, fiction, film, play, and cross-genre collaboration. Nomadic and prolific by nature, she is the author of the novel, Fish in Exile, the story collection A Brief Alphabet of Torture (winner of the 2016 FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize) and of four poetry collections: Human Tetris, Sheep Machine, Umbilical Hospital, and The Old Philosopher(winner of the 2014 Nightboat Prize). Her poetry collection, A Bell Curve Is A Pregnant Straight Line, and her short stories collection, The Vegas Dilemma, are forthcoming from 11:11 Press Summer and Fall 2021 respectively. She was the fall 2019 fellow at the Black Mountain Institute. https://www.vikhinao.com
Marc Anthony Richardson is an artist and novelist from Philadelphia, who specializes in dense, visceral prose that circles on itself and leaps from present to past, using language that is, at times, phantasmagoric. Year of the Rat, his debut novel, won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, and an American Book Award. Messiahs, his second novel, is due for release in Fall 2021 by Fiction Collective Two/University of Alabama Press. The book takes place in a dystopian America, where one can assume a relative’s capital sentence as an act of holy reform—the proxy initiative, patterned after the Passion. Richardson was also the recipient of a PEN America grant, a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright fellowship, and a Vermont Studio Center residency. His work has appeared in Conjunctions, Callaloo, Black Warrior Review, Western Humanities Review, and the anthology, Who Will Speak for America?, from Temple University Press. He received his MFA from Mills College, taught at Rutgers University, and currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the recipient of a 2021 Sachs Program Grant for Arts Innovation for his novel-in-progress, The Serpent Will Eat Whatever is in the Belly of the Beast, for which he has also received a 2021 Creative Capital Award. In 2022, he will be a writer-in-residence at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. Visit www.marcanthonyrichardson.com for more info.
Wednesday, 10/6
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
7:30 PM (ET) in the KWH Garden and on Youtube
watch: here
Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. For this special Punch Bowl edition of Speakeasy, bring your favorite comedy, satire, parody, or meme collection to share. All are welcome, and we encourage folks who enter the Punch Bowl's fall writing contest to share what they've written!
Thursday, 10/7
CAREERS IN JOURNALISM AND NEW MEDIA: ALUMNI PANEL
Povich Journalism Program
5:00 PM in the KWH Garden and on YouTube
co-sponsored by: the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize
watch: here
Hoping to work in journalism, media, or publishing after college? Our annual Careers in Journalism and New 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.
Friday, 10/8
Saturday, 10/9
Sunday, 10/10
Monday, 10/11
No Good, Very Bad Poetry Night for Sophomores
6:00 PM in the Class of 1942 Garden
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
This lighthearted event is an opportunity for second year students to gather together in teams to write the worst poetry, flash fiction, and novelistic opening sentences they can. Come with friends, or meet people at the Writers House. The winners will receive the Golden Beret trophy
Tuesday, 10/12
Wednesday, 10/13
Thursday, 10/14
Friday, 10/15
Saturday, 10/16
Sunday, 10/17
Monday, 10/18
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:00 PM in the KWH Garden
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Join us for a meeting of the Writers House Planning Committee (also known as "the Hub") — the core group of engaged students, staff, faculty, and volunteers who help make things happen at Writers House. Anyone is welcome to become a Hub member by participating in Hub activities and helping out. Members of the Hub plan programs, share ideas, and discuss upcoming projects.
Tuesday, 10/19
Comics for Kids!
Bernheimer Symposium
6:00PM
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
watch: here
Three cartoonists – Mike Dawson, Liz Montague, and Andrea Tsurumi – will discuss their work for kids and adults. Program Coordinator Alli Katz will moderate.
Mike Dawson is the author of several graphic novels and comics collections. His work has appeared at The Nib and at Slate, and has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Ignatz Awards, as well as the Slate Cartoonists Studio Prize. THE FIFTH QUARTER is his first book for middle-grade readers. He lives at the Jersey Shore with his wife and children.
Liz Montague is a cartoonist, writer and illustrator whose work focuses on the intersection of self and social awareness. She began contributing to The New Yorker in 2019 as a cartoonist and has illustrated for the U.S. Open, Google and the 2020 Biden Presidential campaign. Liz is currently working a young adult graphic novel and picture book for Penguin Random House, as well as a young adult series for Scholastic. She fundamentally believes in representation, accessible information, and drawing your feelings.
Andrea Tsurumi is an author, illustrator and cartoonist who lives with her spouse and their dog in Philadelphia. She's the creator of the children's books ACCIDENT!, CRAB CAKE, and I'M ON IT: an Elephant and Piggie Like Reading book and the illustrator of David Goodner's KONDO & KEZUMI series. Her comics, which have won a Society of Illustrators' award, have been published by Hic & Hoc, The Believer, and TOON, among others. Find out more at andreatsurumi.com
Wednesday, 10/20
A poetry reading by Edwin Torres
Sussman Poetry Program
6:00 PM in the KWH Garden and on YouTube
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
watch: here
Edwin Torres is the author of twelve poetry collections, including The Animal's Perception of Earth (DoubleCross Press), Xoeteox: the infinite word object (Wave), Ameriscopia (University of Arizona Press), Yes Thing No Thing (Roof Books) and editor of The Body In Language: An Anthology (Counterpath Press). He has received fellowships from, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The DIA Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, among others. He has performed his bodylingo poetics worldwide, his visual text and audio works have been exhibited widely and he has collaborated with many artists incorporating homemade sound objects with digital and concrete poetics. He's taught his workshops, Brainlingo and Feel Recordings at UPenn, Naropa University, The Poetry Project and Liminal Lab. Anthologies include, Fractured Ecologies, Who Will Speak For America, Post Modern American Poetry Vol 2, Angels of The Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing, American Poets In The 21st Century: Poetics of Social Engagement, Kindergarde: Avant Garde Poems For Children, and Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Café. A native New Yorker, emerging out of the Lower East Side, he is currently living in Beacon, NY. His next collection, Quanundrum: I will be your many angled thing is forthcoming from Roof Books.
Thursday, 10/21
Printing & Postcards
5:00 PM in the KWH Garden and on Youtube
Co-sponsored by: the Brodsky Gallery and Common Press
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
Want to learn about letterpress printing? Join Mary Tasillo and members of Common Press for a hands-on event. Pull a print from our mobile press, snag a letterpress printed postcard for mailing to a friend, and view a retrospective of Common Press prints made by Penn students and other artists. Not sure what letterpress printing is? Come by and find out how we set blocks of old type to create new art, and find out how to get involved. We'll provide all supplies -- including postcard stamps!
Friday, 10/22
Saturday, 10/23
Sunday, 10/24
Monday, 10/25
Tuesday, 10/26
Wednesday, 10/27
Readings by Julian Brolaski and Cynthia Arrieu-King
6:00 PM ET in the KWH Garden and on Youtube
Co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, and the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
watch: here
Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books 2017), Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), and gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), as well the recipient of the 2020 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry and a 2021 Pew Foundation Fellowship. Julian is also the lead singer and songwriter for Juan & the Pines, whose albums include Glittering Forest (2019) and Saddest Songs (forthcoming 2021). Julian’s poetry was recently included in When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020) and We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat 2020). Julian lives in Chumash territory in Goleta, California.
Cynthia Arrieu-King is a snack valet. Her poetry books include People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus 2010), Manifest, winner of the Gatewood Prize chosen by Harryette Mullen, (Switchback 2013), Futureless Languages (Radiator Press--edited by Ryan Eckes and Ian Davisson, right here in Philadelphia itself), and Continuity (Octopus Books 2021). In 2021 she published The Betweens, an experimental memoir, out from Noemi Press. Her poems have appeared in the tiny (edited by Emma Brown Sanders and Gina Myers, also out of Philadelphia), APR, TriQuarterly, and Crazyhorse. She divides her time between Philadelphia and Louisville, Kentucky.
Thursday, 10/28
A conversation with Jessica Goodman
A RealArts@Penn event, sponsored by Creative Ventures
5:00 PM (ET) on Youtube (virtual only)
Hosted by: Anthony DeCurtis
watch: here
Jessica Goodman is the New York Times bestselling author of young adult thrillers They Wish They Were Us, They’ll Never Catch Us, and The Counselors (out in 2022) from Razorbill/ Penguin Teen. She is the former op-ed editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, and was part of the 2017 team that won a National Magazine Award in personal service. She has also held editorial positions at Entertainment Weekly and HuffPost, and her work has been published in outlets like Glamour, Condé Nast Traveler, Elle, and Marie Claire.