convicted Philadelphia communist at KWH

The photograph here shows Philadelphia communists picketing to demand the release from jail of W.E.B. DuBois in 1951 (source: Temple University Urban Archives). Sherman Labovitz was among these protestors. Sherman Labovitz...
* came of age in the progressive political and social movement in Philadelphia, a period that included years of membership, and then leadership, in the Philadelphia section of the U.S. Communist Party
* was arrested with other communist leaders in the summer of 1953 and tried under the Smith Act of treason; he was the youngest defendant of the "Philadelphia Nine," which included among others the radical modernist poet, Walter Lowenfels
* was for many years a Professor of Social Work at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, having established the undergraduate program in social work there
* has been an active partner with the Council of Social Work Education
* has written a beautiful, moving memoir of his experiences being tried under the Smith Act and defended by unusually principled prominent Philadelphia lawyers.

In January 1999 Sherm read from and talked about his memoir at the Writers House. Here is what Faculty Director Al Filreis wrote the next day: "Last night Sherman Labovitz spoke at the House--about his experiences as a young communist leader in Philadelphia on trial under the Smith Act (for conspiring to teach the necessity of overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence as soon as conditions permit) and about his memoir, Being Red in Philadelphia. It was a wonderful session, well attended and exciting. Sherm was the youngest of the nine Philadelphia Smith Act trial defendants. The oldest was Walter Lowenfels, avant garde poet from the 1920s, communist, and (at the time of the indictment) the editor of the Pennsylvania edition of the Daily Worker. Sherm ended the program last night with a nice surprise. He pulled out his (rare) copy of the poems Lowenfels wrote during the trial and while in jail (awaiting high bail to be raised), and he read three of these poems--quite movingly, I thought."

new at KWH ART

A few days back--Jan. 19--the newest exhibit in our art gallery was celebrated at an opening party and presentation. The show is titled "Uncommonly Selected: Rorschach Drawings by Jessica Nissen," and the opening featured a talk about Rorschach-derived poetry by Diana Sue Hamilton. As is almost always the case, if you go to our web calendar entry for this event you will see links to the video recording (streaming video) and audio recording (downloadable MP3). Jessica Nissen splits her time between NYC, where she works as a scenic artist for the entertainment industry and Vermont, where she keeps a studio and occasionally teaches in the Art Dept. of Middlebury College. Nissen received an MFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art in 1998, a BA from Middlebury College in 1990 and earned undergraduate credits from the Rhode Island School of Design and Tyler. She has been a fellow at The Corporation of Yaddo and the Chautauqua Institution. Since 1991 she has exhibited extensively and has participated both as an artist and as an organizer/curator in several large-scale interdisciplinary art events. KWH ART is curated by Keagan Sparks.

KWH staffers over the years

At left you see a photo of Courtney Mandryk, who was assistant to the KWH Director (then Kerry Sherin) in 2002-03. We've kept track of our beloved staff for every year since (and including) 1997-98 (although we do have records for 1996-97, when the Director was Shawn Walker) and hope that friends & fans of the House will want to look back at the rosters of wonderful people who've worked and played at 3805 Locust over the years. You can start here, when Courtney was with us, and click on links to the various years from there.

CPCW

Founded in 2003, the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing was created to bring together all of Penn's writing programs and projects for the first time in the university's long history. The Critical Writing Program hosts the Penn Writing Center and of course the array of Critical Writing Seminars which all Penn undergrads take to fulfill their writing requirement. The Creative Writing Program hosts courses on fiction writing, poetry writing, screenwriting, playwriting, "uncreative writing" and experimental poetics, letterpress printing/writing & typography & book-making, and nonfiction and journalism of all sorts. PennSound is the largest archive of recordings of poets reading their own poetry. CPCW sponsors an annual Fellow in Poetics & Poetic Practice, the Bassini Writing Apprenticeship, the RealArts@PENN summer internships, several podcast series, the Heled Travel & Research Grant, the Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP), an Alumni Mentors Program, three financial-aid scholarships for student writers, and dozens of annual writing prizes. And then of course there's the Kelly Writers House.

listen to Zach

Zach Djanikian performed one of his own songs, "Love of My Life," on our Live at the Writers House radio program, aired on XPN. The first voice you hear in the recording is that of Michaela Majoun, the show's host (and XPN's morning show host for many years). Live has a long history. Its first host was Jeff Wachs (then an undergrad) and first director was Sarah Giulian (now a Bay Area-based singer-songwriter). Other hosts have included: Kerry Sherin, Shawn Walker, Al Filreis. Our current director is Erin Gautsche.

Aichlee and Tracie

A happy, celebratory moment. To help honor Aichlee Bushnell at the time of her graduation--after four years of close affiliation with the Writers House community, in various ways: as writer, staffer, community organizer, student--Aichlee was toasted at our annual "Senior Capstone" event, in May 2009. Tracie Morris came all the way from NYC to give the introduction. And here are the two of them, immediately after the program.

New Yorker writer Tad Friend

The wonderful New Yorker writer (his most recent piece was about the UC Berkeley crisis) Tad Friend will join us on January 20 at 6 PM. Paul Hendrickson will introduce. Friend is the author of the memoir Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor, which came out in September, and Lost in Mongolia: Travels in Hollywood and Other Foreign Lands, a collection of his articles. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998, and writes the magazine's "Letter from California." Mr Friend's recent pieces have included articles about Hollywood's marketing tricks, the electric-car and rocket-ship entrepreneur Elon Musk, the man in charge of executions at San Quentin, and the man who hopes to introduce "green burial" to American cemeteries. He has also written profiles of William Morris agent David Wirtschafter, screenwriter Ron Bass, and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. His article on suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge, "Jumpers," inspired the song "Jumpers" by the band Sleater-Kinney, and was turned into a documentary film, "The Bridge."