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Jamie-Lee Josselyn

Associate Director for Recruitment & Instructor, Creative Writing Program; Director, Summer Workshop for Young Writers, Kelly Writers House 

(she/her/hers)

Office Hours

fall 2023

Mondays, 4:45-5:45, and by appointment

CPCW Room 206 or Zoom

Jamie-Lee Josselyn is the Associate Director for Recruitment and an instructor for the University of Pennsylvania’s Creative Writing Program and the Director of the Summer Workshop for Young Writers at the Kelly Writers House. She has been listed among Penn’s Top 30 Professors based on student evaluations, received the Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring, and is a Penn Arts & Sciences Platinum Award winner. She has taught creative nonfiction writing at St. Paul's School's Advanced Studies Program, the New England Young Writers Conference, the 1vyG Conference, the Wharton School's Advanced Management Education Conference, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and elsewhere, and has facilitated college essay writing workshops in collaboration with Penn Admissions, Minds Matter, the Alabama School of Fine Arts, Steppingstone Scholars, and other organizations. She has hosted many panels and interviews on a wide range of literary topics at the Kelly Writers House and has led and co-led discussion groups via the Kelly Writers House's Online Book Groups Program.

From 2005-2012, Jamie-Lee worked as the Assistant to the Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and coordinated the Kelly Writers House Fellows Program and other projects, and worked as a teaching assistant. From 2014-2017, she served as a College House Fellow in Hill College House and the College House at Sansom West. Jamie-Lee has served as a pre-major advisor for Penn's College of Arts and Sciences since 2012 and is also a major advisor for the English Department and a fellowship advisor for the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

Jamie-Lee received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Bennington College. Her writing has been published in The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times' Daily Pilot, Literary Hub, The Sun, Cleaver Magazine, and elsewhere, and she has hosted the literary podcast series Dead Parents Society. She has volunteered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Back on my Feet, Mighty Writers, NextGen PA, SEAMAAC, and Girls on the Run and serves as Advisory Board Chair of Cosmic Writers.

(Photo by Eric Sucar, University of Pennsylvania Communications)

Articles and Book Chapters

"Jamie-Lee Josselyn wins Platinum Award" School of Arts & Sciences (2023)
"For Blaze" The Daily Pennsylvanian (2018)
"10 Marathons, $13,000 ... and Eventually Tacos" American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (2016)
"Home Sweet Away Team" Kelly Writers House: Writing About TV (2016)
"Dispatch From the Cat Show" Cleaver Magazine (2013)

News & Events

Courses Taught

fall 2024

fall 2023

fall 2022

fall 2021

fall 2020

fall 2019

spring 2019

fall 2018

fall 2017

fall 2016

spring 2016

ENGL 010.302 Journalism and Memoir  

fall 2015

ENGL 010.302 Creative Writing  

spring 2015

fall 2014

ENGL 010.302 Creative Writing  

spring 2014

ENGL 010.302 Creative Writing  

fall 2013

ENGL 010.302 Journalism and Memoir  

spring 2013

ENGL 010.302 Creative Writing  

fall 2012

ENGL 010.302 Creative Writing  

spring 2012

ENGL 010.303 Journalism/Memoir  

fall 2011

ENGL 010.303 Creative Writing  

fall 2010