Trisha Low in the "Dailiy News"

The KWH community is proud of to see one of its own featured in a New York Daily News article about emerging women poets in New York. Here's a link to that article.

CPCW's directors

From right to left: Jessica Lowenthal, Director of the Kelly Writers House; Greg Djanikian, Director of the Creative Writing Program; Al Filreis, Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing; Val Ross, Director of the Critical Writing Program; and Mingo Reynolds, CPCW's Director of Administration.

Getting medieval at the Writers House

On 12/9/13, David Wallace led us in an event called "Getting Medieval - Performing the Canterbury Tales" - and here is a link to both audio and video recordings of the program. http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/1213.php#9

Entrepreneurial journalism pitch night

Tuesday, December 10:  Entrepreneurial Journalism Pitch Night - 6:30 PM in the Arts Cafe, sponsored by Creative Ventures. Penn's Entrepreneurial Journalism students have spent the semester dreaming up new journalism platforms. Tonight they'll present their ideas to a panel of distinguished journalists, venture capitalists, and Internet pioneers. With $7,500 in seed money on the line, it's going to be an exciting evening for anyone interested in the future of journalism. Click here to watch a video recording of last year's event.

giving thanks for great KWH people

John Carroll, Jamie-Lee Josselyn & Arielle Brousse - real Writers House originals - gather together with many others at the annual Writers House Thanksgiving, on the Monday evening of Thanksgiving week.

"PennMOO" was a forerunner of the Writers House

A virtual poetry slam for hundreds of students worldwide, in PennMOO in March 1995 - weirdly a crucial forerunner to the development of the Writers House six months later. A MOO is/was a pre-graphical synchronous "chat" space where many people could meet to "do" things, including collaboratively create poems and other writing forms. Here's your link to the "way-back machine" copy of the web invitation to this event.

Mike Magee & Kristen Gallagher, 2 KWH founders, back in the house

When Mike Magee and Kristen Gallagher spent a day back at the Writers House - to participate in a ModPo webcast and to be PoemTalkers for a new episode of PoemTalk - they naturally inclined to the kitchen, where they fell back into the Writers House scene that they indeed helped to create as founding members of the "hub" back in 1995-96.

conceptualists in the house

From left to right: Tracie Morris, Kenny Goldsmith, Mike Magee and Al Filreis. On November 14 they gathered to present a live webcast to thousands of the students in ModPo, a massive open online course hosted by the Kelly Writers House. There were also dozens of ModPo'ers in the Arts Cafe, folks who traveled, some from far away, to be present. A recording of the webcast is now available.

Tracie Morris in the house

Tracie Morris at the Kelly Writers House, 6 PM, Thursday, November 14. If you cannot join us in person, watch via live video stream: HERE.

Tracie Morris is a poet, performer and scholar. She works extensively as a singer, sound artist, writer, bandleader and actor. Her installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial, Ronald Feldman Gallery, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and the New Museum. She holds an MFA in poetry from Hunter College and an MA and PhD in Performance Studies from New York University. Dr. Morris is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute.

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Tuesday, November 12, 6 PM: A poetry reading by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, 6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe, introduced by: Charles Bernstein. Berssenbrugge is the author of The Heat Bird (1983), winner of the American Book Award; Empathy (1989), winner of the PEN West Award; Sphericity (1993); Endocrinology (1997), a collaboration with the artist Kiki Smith; Four Year Old Girl (1998), winner of the Western States Book Award; Nest (2003); and I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems (2006).

Blonk, Bernstein, Snelson

From left to right: Jaap Blonk, Charles Bernstein & Danny Snelson. Recently Jaap Blonk visited the Writers House to perform some of his own and others' sound poems.

the 2013-14 KWH staff

Visit our staff page to learn more about this fabulously talented staff.

the very first episode of "Live at the Writers House"

This is Jeff Wachs, the very first on-air host of KWH's long-running radio program, "Live at the Writers House," aired on WXPN. We started the show in 1997. Sarah Giulian, then a junior, was the show's creator and director. Al Filreis and Vinnie Curran, Faculty Director of KWH and Station Manager of XPN respectively, were Executive Producers. And Jeff was the host. The photo above shows Jeff standing at the old KWH podium in the unrenovated Arts Cafe, wearing his stage pass, introducing the very first performer on episode 1. Recently "Live at the Writers House" recorded its 100th episode.

Video of Matt Yglesias of Slate at KWH

Watch our one-hour interview/conversation with Slate's economics correspondent Matthew Yglesias, recorded on Tuesday, October 1 (the first day of the federal government shutdown): http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/reruns/watch/152054. This event was part of the annual Weber Symposium. Click here to see information about and recordings of previous years' symposia.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis reads "Letter 8" from a new project called "Interstices"

Click here to watch a video recording of Ron Silliman's introduction to this reading.

poetry communities conference

Last year KWH hosted a conference on "Poetry Communities." Most of the talks presented at that gathering are now available at Jacket2 magazine.

Graham Nash at the Writers House!

Yes, Graham Nash visited the Writers House for the annual Blutt Singer-songwriter Symposium. He was interviewed by Anthony DeCurtis, took questions for the audience and then surprised and delighted us by playing two songs: "Back Home," a pre-elegy for Levon Helm; and "Teach Your Children," which he dedicated to Anthony's daughter Francesca who was sitting in the first row.

gallery opening on September 24

Brodsky Gallery Opening

Erin Murray/Recent Work
6:00 PM, Tuesday, September 24

The first Brodsky Gallery show of the academic year features recent drawings by Philadelphia artist Erin Murray. Join us for a brief artist's talk, followed by a reception and time to view and enjoy the art.

Erin Murray was born in Philadelphia in 1979 and currently lives and works in that city. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001. Her work draws on the built environment to empathically explore themes of humanity. Recent solo exhibitions have been at Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York, the Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia, and The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE. Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia and Salon Zurcher in New York. In 2012 she was awarded the West Collects acquisition prize and joined the artist's collective Vox Populi. You can find her work published in New American Paintings, Tabletop Zine, and Dirty Laundry Magazine.

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.

New podcast: excerpt from screenwriter Walter Bernstein's visit to KWH in 2003

In 2003, the screenwriter Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, Fail-Safe, The Molly McGuires, etc.) was a Writers House Fellow. He gave a reading on a Monday evening, and then came back for the usual Tuesday morning interview conducted by Al Filreis. The full recording of the interview is of course available. But now, thanks to Emily Harnett, we are making a 20-minute excerpt available as a podcast. Emily introduces the excerpt and provides a clear context for Bernstein's visit to KWH. Please listen! And visit this page to find our 25 other KWH podcasts in the series.

Rivka, Kim, Lindsey, Lily & Rebekah

 
We All Feel Like It - featuring Rivka Fogel, Kimberly Eisler, Lindsey Todd, Lily Applebaum, Rebekah Caton at the Kelly Writers House on December 3, 2009, as part of the Whenever We Feel Like It Reading Series.

Paul Hendrickson, mentor

Paul Hendrickson meets up with three of his students - Jessica Goldstein, Naomi Shavin, and Trishula Patel - in Washington DC, at Kramerbooks on Dupont Circle on Tuesday July 2. Here is part of Paul's caption for this nice photo: "Jessica, graduate of the College 2011, has been at the Style section of the Washington Post almost since the day she graduated. She came as an intern that summer and impressed her editors to the extent that they wouldn't let her go home. She writes about art and theater and general culture and week in, week out, she fills up the paper. Last week, nothing to it, Style ran two of her stories on the same day. Naomi, rising senior in the College, is in the Washington bureau of the New Yorker this summer, working as a mad researcher for Ryan Lizza and Jane Mayer. She is following in the footsteps of Mike Morse, who graduated from Penn in May and did the same kind of work last summer. Naomi did major researching and backgrounding for Lizza on an immigration piece that has just appeared in the magazine. Trish, the College 2012, earned a master's degree from Columbia's graduate school of journalism this past spring and then won an internship at the Washington Post. She's out reporting every day for the metro section of the paper--little "briefs" and far more substantial stuff. Already she has scored a co-byline on A-1. (It was about Rusty the red panda who suddenly went missing at the National Zoo.) Note: In his 23 years as a staff feature writer in Style at the Post, the old guy in the photograph probably had no more than 4 or 5 front-page stories. Cool it, Trish!"

RealArts interns talk about their experiences

Video recording of a panel discussion about our "RealArts" internships. Listen to 2012 interns talk about their experiences. Click here.

Dante's magnificent seven

Lee Huttner discusses Dante's Magificent Seven at the 7-UP on Seven event at the Kelly Writers House, April 11, 2011. The 7-Up series is an annual program for which we invite seven guests to speak for seven minutes each about a topic. Each speaker gives their insight on some aspect of the chosen theme; interesting interpretations and musings always result.

"Sensible Nonsense" at KWH

For more about this event, click here.

Watch Anthony DeCurtis interview Loudon Wainwright

 

Loudon Wainwright III interviewed by Anthony DeCurtis - KWH's 2013 installment of our Blutt Singer-Songwriter Symposium. You can watch a video recording of the complete program by clicking here.

Roger Angell at KWH - new podcast

Roger Angell at the Kelly Writers House in 2005 as a Writers House Fellow, greeting then-student Jamie-Lee Josselyn. Today we have released episode 25 in the "Kelly Writers House Podcasts" series. The episode is introduced by Amaris Cuchanski, based on an excerpt from the full recording of a one-hour interview/discussion edited by Nick DeFina. Writers House podcasts can be found here, and can also be found in iTunes. The full recording of the discussion with Angell, and a recording of his presentation the night before (about baseball and memoir) can be found on Angell's KWH Fellows page.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Kaegan Sparks - video

Kaegan Sparks was KWH's art gallery curator for several years. She also got very involved with the ICA, a relationship that began when she took Kenny Goldsmith's year-long seminar on writing about contemporary art. Click here to watch a video of Kaegan talking about her KWH experience.

marathon reading

Every year the people of the Writers House come together to read an entire book - a marathon reading. This year the book was In Cold Blood. Above you see our living room during the reading: watch out for the police tape and the dead body!

Beltran Award in Gazette article

The Pennsylvania Gazette recently ran an article about the first annual Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching at the Kelly Writers House. Here is a link (PDF) to the article. And here is a link to the KWH web site page on this new annual award.

Simon Morris, "Rewriting Freud"

This is a 12-minute clip from a 3/6/13 talk by Simon Morris, sponsored by Writers Without Borders. Watch a video recording of the entire event via KWH-TV. Listen to an audio recording of this event. In a 45 minute presentation, entitled 'eating the book' Dr. Simon Morris presented four of his experimental bookworks that challenge conventional methods of reading and writing. Morris has been called 'philosophically irresponsible', a 'literary pervert' and an 'inspired lunatic'. From 2011-12, he was writer-in-residence at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Morris is one of the leading proponents of conceptual writing: a fusion of art and literature. In 2002 he founded the publishing imprint information as material. He lives in York, England and teaches at the University of Teesside where he is Programme Leader in Fine Art.

March 2013 highlights - audio

 

Click here to listen to a 2-minute audio highlight of March 2013 programs at the Writers House. Above from left: Nada Gordon, Ada Calhoun, the jacket of Capote's In Cold Blood.

KWH in Second Life

Did you know that the Kelly Writers House exists in Second Life as well as this first life? We don't host programs there very often, but you can certainly visit and have a look around.  Here's a little more, and here's an early-ish foray into poetry in SL. And here's a video about our approach.

John Ashbery on aging and memory

John Ashbery is interviewed by KWH Faculty Director Al Filreis on February 12, 2013, during Ashbery's stint as a KWH Fellow. Here they discuss poetry, aging and memory.

a history of the Writers House in 19 minutes

This is a video recording of the 15th anniversary celebration of the Kelly Writers House, held during homecoming weekend that year. Three of Al Filreis's former students, and KWH's first Director, Kerry Sherin Wright, presented their work. But before they did that, Al gave a high-speed talk on the founding of the Writers House three times in succession: first a "conservative" narrative of KWH, then a liberal narrative, and finally a radical narrative.

Locust Street looking east in 1953

This photograph was taken on May 29, 1953, on the 38th block of Locust Street in West Philadelphia. The photographer was looking east toward the center of the University of Pennsylvania. Today, from this vantage, one would see Locust Walk (not Street), and in the distance one would see the street go upward over the 38th Street pedestrian bridge. Along the right side of this view today one would see the edge of Harnwell House ("High Rise East") and then, further away, the front edge of the Class of 1920 Commons. The Samuel Sloan-designed house at 3805 Locust Walk - now the Kelly Writers House - is not visible here (as it is set back from the street), but near where we've placed a red dot is the street-side path that leads to the porch and front door of the house. For more information about this photograph, click here.

Ken Lum

Ken Lum, new director of undergraduate Fine Arts at Penn and important language-y artist, visited KWH recently for a lunchtime program moderated by Al Filreis. For more about the event and about Ken, click here.

This video is an excerpt from "pitch night" for our "Entrepreneurial Jounalism" class taught by Sam Apple. These two student presentations proposed new applications to address current trends and problems in long-form nonfiction writing and publishing. You can watch the complete video - with all the student pitches - here. This program was sponsored by our Creative Ventures program.

Jena Osman

Jena Osman reading from "Corporate Relations" during the Osman/Patti McCarthy double reading, 2/23/2013, hosted by the "Whenever We Feel Like It Series," curated by Michelle Taransky.

James Surowiecki at Weber Symposium

 

James Surowiecki visited KWH for the annual Weber Symposium, which features a discussion with a writer about finance and economics. Both audio and video recordings of this event are now available, linked to the event entry in the Writers House web calendar.

our house in 1908

3805 Locust Walk in 1908!