Recently at the Kelly Writers House I interviewed Victor Bokris about the interview. HERE is a Daily Pennsylvanian article about the event. And HERE is the recording of the YouTube livestream. Bockris graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. After graduation, he founded Telegraph Press, a seminal small press...
The late Bob Lucid (Bob hired me, mentored me & later secured 3805 Locust Walk as a site for what become the Writers House) spoke in stunning, seemingly aimless periodic sentences. This photo was taken just after I interviewed him as the Writers House turned 10 years old in 2006....
I’m honored to have been the faculty mentor/advisor for Cosmic Writers (aka Word Camp). Click here for a Penn Today article about the project. Cosmic Writers brings free creative writing education to school-aged children. In the photo below: recent graduates Rowana Miller and Manoj Simha lead the new nonprofit supported by...
Matvei Yankelevich, Ahmad Almallah, Kevin Platt & I discussed Matvei’s marvelous new book of poems, “Dead Winter.” Ahmad’s students joined us and toward the end got wonderfully involved in the conversation.
“Celebrating poetry and literature at Penn since 1985, Al Filreis, Kelly Family Professor of English, continues to create community at the home for writers he founded in a Locust Walk house a quarter-century ago.” The opening of a profile about me written by Louisa Shepard. HERE is your link to...
I was honored to receive the Faculty Award of Merit given by the Penn alumni in 2020. The ceremony was delayed by a year, and in October of 2021 the ceremony was presented via livestream. Here is a recording of the brief talk I gave in response to receiving the...
I am honored to be part of our collaboration with Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center—founded in 2014, it’s called “Writing a Life”—through which oncology patients are encouraged to write about their lives of health and illness. Here is a short history of the program: https://media.sas.upenn.edu/writershouse/Writing-a-Life-History-April-2021%20.pdf
I published a memorial comment on Paul Kelly in the March 15, 2021, issue of the Daily Pennsylvanian. It has been issued as a guest column and can be found HERE.
I am thrilled and honored to announce that Maury Povich (College ’62) & Connie Chung have decided to make a significant gift to the Kelly Writers House to endow our annual Summer Workshop for Young Writers. The gift provides financial aid to support approximately half of the high school juniors and seniors who are selected...
I am thrilled to announce that the recipient of the Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching for 2020-21 is Ron Silliman, who has taught creative writing seminars brilliantly for many years by now. The award, endowed by the Beltran family, is given each year, through a process of student nominations,...
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center
for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2—all at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are Secretaries of the Moon,
Wallace Stevens & the Actual World, Modernism from Left to Right, and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60. His new book is 1960: When Art & Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II & Remade the Modern (Columbia University Press, 2021). He is currently writing a book about online pedagogy. He has taught a massive open online course, "ModPo," to 265,000 participants in 192 countries since 2012.
Founder/Faculty Director, Kelly Writers House—intro video ][ events calendar
Convener/teacher, “ModPo.” an open online course on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry—overview of the course ][ intro video
Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—my Jacket2 commentary series ][ "First Readings"
Producer/host, PoemTalk podcast series—co-sponsored by Kelly Writers House & the Poetry Foundation
Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing—Creative Writing ][ RealArts internships ]
Co-founder & co-director of PennSound—50,000 files ][ 15 million downloads annually
Teacher & host, "Kelly Writers House Fellows"—since 1999 ][ Susan Sontag, John Ashbery, Jamaica Kincaid, Laurie Anderson, Adrienne Rich, Joan Didion, John Edgar Wideman & more
Teacher, "Representations of the Holocaust"—a course on survivor testimony ][ my holocaust site
Click on the image for information about the book.