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Dear Friends of the Writers House,
There are days when even those of us who spend most of our time at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania are amazed by what takes place here. This 3-story house, with its thirteen lovely rooms and dozens of "virtual" outposts via email and on the world wide web, seems to inspire endless creativity and innovation among the people who call it home.
It was only a few years ago that a group of people–mostly undergraduate students, some graduate students and faculty, a few staff and alumni–began to imagine a community space for writers at Penn. When former provost Stanley Chodorow and President Judith Rodin took a chance and gave this group of writers the keys to an 1851 Gothic cottage, formerly the chaplain's house, at 3805 Locust Walk, could anyone have predicted the enthusiasm with which the Writers House would be welcomed at Penn?
Just days after the keys changed hands, the readings, the dinners, the seminars and workshops and jazz shows began. And after a generous donation from Paul Kelly (C'62, WG'64) in 1997 brought the House into the 21st century, renovating the gorgeous rooms, providing state-of-the-art equipment for publications, and wiring even the bathrooms for internet access, members of the Penn community and Philadelphia residents found dozens more ways to enjoy the House. In the spring of 1998, on a typical day, the editors of the Penn Review met to produce their latest issue in the new publications room while a Wharton graduate student and professional journalist taught a freelance writing workshop in the library, and in the newly equipped classroom, cinephiles could be heard discussing Hal Hartley, while downstairs in the Arts Cafe, students set up sound equipment for the second season of our spoken-word radio broadcast, "Live at the Writers House."
We're now heading into our eighth year of programs and the surprises, delightful and inspiring, keep coming. Each week more than five hundred people use the House, attending writing and writing-related classes, producing magazines, creating digital audio files for our internet archive, baking brownies, planning literacy programs, celebrating Beat poetry with an impromptu reading, and engaging their professors in intellectual conversation beyond the bounds of the classroom.
A welcoming space. A mutual interest. Writers of all kinds and in all disciplines, from across campus and, indeed, across the city. The attention of interested faculty leaders and a few dedicated staff. A score–at least!–of energetic, brilliant, curious volunteers, who come to the House from the ranks of undergraduates, alumni, faculty, Penn parents, and Penn employees. Financial support–first from the University's far-thinking President and Provosts, then from one of its most accomplished alumni, then from a host of our treasured friends.
These elements, taken together, have produced the Kelly Writers House, and the House, in turn, keeps on producing. We marvel at the serendipity, and we look forward to the years, and the projects, and the visions, to come.
On behalf of the Kelly Writers House Planning Committee,
Al Filreis, Faculty Director & Jessica Lowenthal, Director