Leeway LIVE at Kelly Writers House

LIVE at the Writers House features Leeway Grant and Award Winners

Philadelphia, PA—Leeway grantees and awardees will be featured as part of special taping of "LIVE at the Writers House," a long-standing collaboration between the Kelly Writers House at University of Pennsylvania and WXPN FM (88.5). This installment will feature 2009 grantees and awardees Bahamadia (LTA ’09), Elizabeth Castiglione (ACG ’09), and Jax Peters Lowell (LTA ’09) and is hosted by WXPN on-air personality Michaela Majoun. Six times annually between September and April, the Writers House airs a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, along with one musical guest on WXPN. "LIVE" is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc.

This special Leeway LIVE event takes place at 7:00 pm in the Arts Café in the Kelly Writers House located at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania (Locust Walk is a pedestrian street between and parallel to Walnut Streets and Spruce Streets).

To reserve a seat, please contact producer Erin Gautsche at gautsche@writing.upenn.edu.

About the Artists

A Philadelphia native, Bahamadia (LTA ’09) is accredited as being one of the original MCs to gain international acceptance for Philly in the hip-hop community. A well-respected female DJ for more than a decade, Bahamadia quickly became one of the most sought after lyricists on the underground scene after entering the rap game following MCs such as Sha-Rock (FUNKY 4+1 MORE), Lady B, and Salt & Pepa. She earned the respect that allows her to declare in freestyle verse, "I'm a rap fanatic ... phenomenal at it a syllable savage written or off the cabbage ... this chick is bananas!" She has released two solo albums: Kollage (EMI Records, 1996), the first LP ever written/co-produced entirely by a female hip-hop artist, and BB Queen (Good Vibe Recordings). She has collaborated with with Lauryn Hill, Morcheeba, Sweet Back (Sade's band), Towa Tei, The Roots, King Britt, Erykah Badu, Ramsey Lewis (Jazzmatazz, Vol.2), Talib Kweli, and others. In addition to being a respected songwriter/producer, Bahamadia serves as a positive role model for, and mentor of, many upcoming artists. Bahamadia has also been a contributing writer for Stress Magazine in New York City. Her historic weekly radio show at Philadelphia's 103.9 FM, Bahamadia's B-sides, reigned as one of the highest-rated radio shows in Philadelphia and gave Philly radio listeners their first taste of then-unknown artists like Eminen, Mos Def, and many of the Rawkus Records roster of artists from the late 1990's.

Elizabeth Castiglione (ACG ’09) is an artist and writer whose work focuses on the tensions between art-making, motherhood, and mental illness. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.F.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has taught art at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. In 2006 she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, after struggling with her moods for many years. With therapy and medication, she has begun to successfully juggle the myriad challenges of being an artist, a mother, and a person with mental illness. She currently works part-time at a local Friends school. Elizabeth has kept a journal throughout her life, in which she writes and draws. After her children were born, she began drawing them as they slept. Over a hundred of these images, along with journal entries, form the basis for her book, Stumbling in the Dark: Art, Motherhood, and Mental Illness.

Novelist, poet, short story writer, memoirist, gluten-free author and activist, Jax Peters Lowell (LTA ’09) is driven by the idea that a single voice is a powerful catalyst for social healing and change. She believes that in caring for characters, whether real or imagined, and being moved, shocked, or outraged by their fates, we widen our views and move in directions not possible in the stridency of political argument. Her novel Mothers, a Barnes & Noble Discover Book, was published by St. Martin's Press and optioned by Paramount Pictures and Goldie Hawn's Cherry Alley Productions. Lowell has been interviewed on NPR's Radio Times, The Louise Collins Show on WHWH Radio Princeton, was a featured speaker at the James A. Michener Library and participated in Philadelphia's Third Annual Celebration for Literacy. Gluten-free since l981, Lowell penned the now classic Against The Grain and its best-selling follow-up, The Gluten-Free Bible, both published by Henry Holt.

For more information about the show, or if you are interested in reading or being a part of the audience, contact series producer Erin Gautsche (gautsche@writing.upenn.edu) c/o "LIVE at the Writers House," 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia PA 19104-6150.

Resources

LIVE at Kelly Writers House

Kelly Writers House