Roger Angell on the catcher
Among my favorite pieces of prose is the long opening paragraph of Roger Angell’s New Yorker essay “In the Fire.” Here it is:
Tagged: Kelly Writers House Fellows
Hilton Als on traumatic memory & “the wall” (9-min. video)
I ask Hilton Als about his remarkable essay “It Will Soon Be Here,” a reflection on traumatic memory and the figure of the wall that keeps us from direct access to it. (This is a 9-minute clip from an hour-long conversation that took place on March 30, 2021.) LINK TO...
John Keene at KWH on February 11/12
We at the Kelly Writers House are thrilled to welcome our first Writers House Fellow of 2019, fiction writer, poet, theorist, critic & translator John Keene, on February 11 and 12. John will visit us for two special programs: * a reading on Monday, February 11 at 6:30 PM; and * an...
Kelly Writers House Fellows, 2019: John Keene, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Rosanne Cash
We at the Kelly Writers House are thrilled to announce our 2019 Writers House Fellows events. This year, we will welcome fiction writer, critic, and (as of last month) MacArthur Foundation grantee John Keene, legendary poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and eminent singer-songwriter and fiction writer Rosanne Cash. Seating is strictly limited for these programs, and an RSVP...
My interview with Maria Bamford (a 7-min. excerpt)
Thanks to Tyler Burke for editing the recording of this Kelly Writers House Fellows interview/discussion down from 1+ hours.
Lydia Davis in conversation
During her visit to Kelly Writer House as a KWH Fellow, Lydia Davis spent an hour with me in conversation. In the course of the house I asked her to read several of her pieces and we were then able to discuss these in detail. Thanks for Domenic Casciato of...
Kelly Writers House Fellows 2017: “final words” party
The amazing group of people who formed the KWH Fellows Seminar for spring 2017 met for a final time last night—our “final words” session. Here are some photos I took of the gang. Click on any image for a larger view.
Lydia Davis at the Writers House
Lydia Davis spent three days with us as a Kelly Writers House Fellow. On April 24, 2017, she met with the students in the KWH Fellows Seminar for three hours and then gave a reading, in which she performed several dozen new micro-fictions (most of them unpublished; all of them...
Kelly Writers House letterpress broadsides gain in value
We typically give these gorgeous hand-printed letterpress broadsides for free to KWH audiences, so it’s a little disheartening (but also oddly exciting) to see them being sold later for $150 and up. But if you want them gratis, come to a Writers House event soon!
My interviews with Matt Weiner: three excerpts
My interviews with Matthew Weiner took place during his visit to the Kelly Writers House as a KWH Fellow in April of 2016. Links to the full recordings of both interviews can be found here at the KWH Fellows site. I’m grateful to Dylan Leahy who edited these three clips...
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 
Founder/Faculty Director, 