6/18 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series – Week 7

8 PM TUESDAY…

Hemingway’s Cafe, 3911 Forbes Avenue , Oakland
Founded by Jimmy Cvetic.
Co-hosted by Joan E. Bauer & Kristofer Collins
Open mic after featured readings as time permits.
Listen in @ www.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hemingwayssummerpoetryseries/

Tuesday June 18 – Save the Planet! A reading w/ Paola Corso, Barbara Edelman, Mike Schneider, Michael Simms, Sheila Squillante & Arlene Weiner.

Paola Corso’s books are set in the Pittsburgh area where her Southern Italian immigrant family found work in the steel mill. A New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow and Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award Winner, she is the author of Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories on Library Journal’s notable list of first novels in Fall 2010, Giovanna’s 86 Circles And Other Stories, a John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist, a book of poems, Death by Renaissance, and newly released poetry collections, The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of the Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing, and Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing about Pittsburgh steelworkers and garment workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. She also co-edited Politics of Water: A Confluence of Women’s Voices with Dr. Nandita Ghosh. She is currently poetry editor at The Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice and a book columnist for Group Against Smog and Pollution

Barbara Edelman’s first full length poetry collection, Dream of the Gone-From City, came out from Carnegie Mellon University Press in February, 2017. She’s the author of two poetry chapbooks, Exposure, Finishing Line Press, 2014 and A Girl in Water, Parallel Press, 2002 and has received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant in poetry. She’s a lecturer in English at the University of Pittsburgh , where she coordinates the Writers’ Café.

Mike Schneider has published poems in many literary journals, including New Ohio Review, Notre Dame Review and Poetry. He received the 2012 Editors Award in Poetry from The Florida Review, and won the 2016 Robert Phillips Prize from Texas Review Press, which in 2017 published his chapbook, How Many Faces Do You Have?

Michael Simms, the founder and editor of Vox Populi, has been active in politics and poetry for over 40 years as a writer, teacher, editor, and community activist. He is the founder of Autumn House Press, a nonprofit publisher of books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He’s also the author of four collections of poetry and a college textbook about poetry — and the lead editor of over 100 published books. Simms has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition from Cornell University . He lives with his wife, Eva, and their two children in the historic Mount Washington neighborhood overlooking the city of Pittsburgh .

Sheila Squillante is the author of the poetry collection, Beautiful Nerve (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), and three chapbooks of poetry: In This Dream of My Father (Seven Kitchens, 2014), Women Who Pawn Their Jewelry (Finishing Line, 2012) and A Woman Traces the Shoreline (Dancing Girl, 2011). She is also co-author, along with Sandra L. Faulkner, of the writing craft book, Writing the Personal: Getting Your Stories Onto the Page (Sense Publishers, 2015). Recent work has appeared or will appear in places like Copper Nickel, North Dakota Quarterly, Indiana Review, Waxwing, Menacing Hedge andRiver Teeth. She teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Chatham University , where she edits The Fourth River, a journal of nature and place-based writing. From her dining room table, she edits the blog at Barrelhouse. She lives in Pittsburgh , PA , with her husband, Paul Bilger, a philosopher and experimental photographer, and their children.

8/29 The Bridge w/ Edelman, Broadus, Waltz, MacIntyre, & Morrison @ Brillobox

7PM WEDNESDAY…

Mark your calendars -The Bridge Series returns Wednesday, August 29 @ 7 pm at Brillobox with a program focused on BREATHING! featuring Barbara Edelman (University of Pittsburgh), Nathaniel Broadus (Blackpacking and The Roots Club), Amanda Waltz (NEXT Pittsburgh), Grant MacIntyre (University of Pittsburgh Law School), along with a Q&A discussion led by Public Source’s Owen Morrison.

$5 donation.

Guest Organization: Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP)
Hosted by Joan E. Bauer

Barbara Edelman is the author of the poetry collection, Dream of the Gone-From City, published by Carnegie Mellon Press in 2017. She’s a lecturer in English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she coordinates the Writers’ Café. She has a longtime interest in environmental issues and will teach a class in environmental advocacy at Pitt in the fall.

Nathaniel Broadus is the comic book writer and founder of Blackpacking: FUBU Hiking, a local black hiking group, and The Roots Club, which gets Black Pittsburghers involved in outdoors activities such as fishing, hunting and camping.

Grant MacIntyre is Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. Before joining the law school faculty, Professor McIntyre worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of General Counsel as an attorney advisor and special assistant to the general counsel, where he focused on the intersection of administrative law and environmental regulation. He received his J.D. from University of Pittsburgh Law School in 2008.

Amanda Waltz is business and tech/environmental news editor at NEXT Pittsburgh. She also writes for The Film
Sae and is the founder and editor of Steel Cinema a blog dedicated to covering Pittsburgh film culture. She has a master’s in Arts Journalism from Syracuse University.

Oliver Morrison is the environment reporter at PublicSource and has focused his reporting on Pittsburgh’s efforts to tackle climate change. Prior to PublicSource, Oliver won regional press awards for his environment and health reporting at The Wichita Eagle. He also led the paper’s coverage of immigration, race and criminal justice reform among other topics. Before the Eagle, he freelanced in New York for publications such as The Atlantic, Education Week and City Limits.

The Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) was founded in 1969 by volunteers concerned about air quality in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Since then, GASP has worked tirelessly to explain and combat our air quality problems through public meetings, engagement with the press, educational events, permit reviews, and many other means.

GASP participates on county, state, and national boards, with stakeholder groups, and on environmental policy committees. Occasionally GASP presses its goals with litigation, having brought action related to requiring Allegheny County to adopt pollution standards based on the Clean Air Act, enforcement of air quality standards at the Clairton Coke Works, LTV Corporation’s air quality violations at the firm’s former Hazelwood plant, Shenango ‘s long-standing air quality infractions at its former Neville Island coke plant, and a number of other instances.

Education and events coordinator Chelsea Arnold will represent G.A.S.P. For more, go to: https://gasp-pgh.org

7/7 Inflammatosis! by Mark Spitzer & Spell to Spell by Lea Graham launch party @ Nine Stories Books + Alien Buddha Invades Erie @ Ember+Forge

7PM Saturday, July 7 at Nine Stories Books, three scribblers from Arkansas join three from the 412 to celebrate the launch of Mark Spitzer’s latest book Inflammatosis, “a big, punk-ass Fuck You to all the petty, pretentious haters out there dicking around with 1) his life, 2) your life, 3) all our lives, and 4) fish.”

Mark Spitzer, novelist, poet, essayist and literary translator, grew up in Minneapolis where he earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1990. He then moved to the Rockies, where he earned his Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. After living on the road for some time, he found himself in Paris, as Writer in Residence for three years at the bohemian bookstore Shakespeare and Company, where he translated French criminals and misanthropes. In 1997 he moved to Louisiana, became Assistant Editor of the legendary lit journal Exquisite Corpse, and earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. He taught creative writing and lit for five years at Truman State University and is now an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas.

Traveling with Mark from the home state of Johnny Cash & C. D. Wright will be Lea Graham & Scotty Lewis. We’ll also be celebrating the launch of Lea’s new chapbook.

Spell to Spell
by Lea Graham
$5

Gristle, (n.) cartilage; tough cartilaginous, tendinous, or fibrous matter

For Georganna Ulary

Grit’s spell. / A bone of sound / between hustle, just whistle. / Grist to the mill of welter, / close to grisly but more wattle / less huddle. / Tattooed thistle, / apple of my ire, / a subtle gris-gris / around the wrist of tussle. / The gist of it: / A muscle that fasts is lost. / We must wrestle that lustful, fustling angel of self, / bedazzle that recluse; / bust and move the offal, / dis refusal. / Wrest our names, / our castling  furies, / cast and fuss to surge, / gird and guzzle that shit; / grease the wheels against hair-shirts of hurt, / storm the bastille of cry, the cradle of grow; / jazz and cussle this tigress, /  this mottled grindle of rage, / muddle the sonic barb.  /  Steal away   steal away   steal away home

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Lea Graham is the author of the forthcoming book, From the Hotel Vernon (Salmon Press, 2019), the chapbook, This End of the World: Notes to Robert Kroetsch (Apt. 9 Press, 2016) and the poetry book, Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011). She is an associate professor at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY and a native of Northwest Arkansas.

This is Graham’s third above/ground press chapbook, after Calendar Girls (2006) and metric : a collaboration (with rob mclennan, 2011).

Here’s another poem from Spell to Spell at Crab Creek Review.

Scotty Lewis is a 2015 graduate of the Arkansas Writers MFA Program. His first book of poetry, Arkansas Ghoulash, came out last December on Six Gallery. Here’s an interview with Scotty talking about the book, & here’s another one.

The Pittsburgh lineup is pretty outstanding too:

Karen Lillis is a writer and bookseller. She is the author of four poetic novels, including The Second Elizabeth (Six Gallery Press, 2009), and runs Karen’s Book Row, a pop up and online bookshop. Her writing has appeared in The Austin Chronicle, The Brooklyn Rail, Evergreen Review, LA Cultural Weekly, and the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, among others. An Acker Award winner for Avant Garde Excellence in Fiction, her recent publications include Submerging Zine, From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream, and forthcoming prose in Local Knowledge (Fall 2018).

Ben Gwin is the Fiction Editor at Burrow Press Review. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Normal School, Bridge Eight, Word Riot, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, and others. His novel manuscript, Clean Time: The True Story of Ronald Reagan Middleton, was shortlisted for the 2014 Pressgang Prize, and named a semifinalist for the 2015 Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize. He lives in Pittsburgh with his daughter.

I’d add that Clean Time is out now & by all accounts hilarious. You can read a bit of it at Literary Hub.

Barbara Edelman is the author of the poetry collection Dream of the Gone-From City from Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017. Her poems have appeared in journals nationally, including Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, and Poet Lore; in translation in the Italian journal Nuovi Argomenti, and in several anthologies. Her short prose has appeared in Rattle and Arts & Letters. She’s the author of two poetry chapbooks: Exposure, Finishing Line Press, 2014 and A Girl in Water, Parallel Press, 2002. Her work has been recognized with a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts individual artist’s grant in poetry and the Turow-Kinder Prize in short fiction.

Edelman teaches in the writing, composition, and literature programs at Pitt and coordinates the Writers’ Café. She won the 2012 CGS Student Choice Award for teaching. She holds a B.A. in English from Colgate University, an M.A. in English from California State University Northridge, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh.

***

Meanwhile, in Erie, it’s

Open mic and featured writers series

feat. Jason Baldinger, Heath Brougher, Scott Thomas Outlar, Jay Miner, Jeremy Stolz, Luke Kuzmish, Matt Borczon, Thasia Anne, & Veronica Hopkins at Ember+Forge.

10/15 Coffee Buddha Presents Braddock Avenue Books & More!

You got a date Wednesday, baby! Jason Baldinger, Barbara Edelman, John Korn, Jeff Oaks, Bart Solarczyk, & Robert Yune will perform poems in a big sandbox behind Coffee Buddha, Jeffrey Condran will host, & Parappa the Rapper’s face will appear in your cappuccino…

10/19 Versify “In the Margins” @ EEBX

TODAY at EEBX, this is happening:

Join us on Saturday, October 19th at 7:30pm for a Versify reading benefiting The Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council

featuring: Barbara Edelman, Angele Ellis, Keely Bowers, and Lynne Walicki!

Come early to meet the authors and learn about how the gift of literacy can make a difference in our lives!

East End Book Exchange

4754 Liberty Ave 15224

(412) 224-2847

There will be a book signing at this event and light refreshment will be provided….

This series is hosted and curated by Bob Walicki.

Author Bios:

Barbara Edelman teaches writing and literature at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, “A Girl in Water,” from Parallel Press at the University of Wisconsin. Her poems have appeared in journals including Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Cimarron Review, and 5 AM; in translation in the Italian journal, Nuovi Argomenti; and in several anthologies. Her short prose has appeared in the journals Rattle and Arts & Letters. She has received the Scott Turow Award for short fiction, an individualartist grant in poetry from the PA Council on the Arts, residency fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a 2012 Student’s Choice Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Pittsburgh’s College of General Studies . Her one-act play, “Charades,” received production as a winner in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

Keely Bowers has published stories in Crazyhorse, Creative Nonfiction, and the Dickinson Review, and she won the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award for fiction. She lives in Pittsburgh where she teaches creative and technical writing at the University of Pittsburgh, raises her son, and studies science.

Angele Ellis is the author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery)–poems from which earned her a 2008 fellowship in poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts–and Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors’ Choice Chapbook). She was a runner-up in the 2012 Grey Sparrow Flash Fiction Contest, received an honorable mention in the 2011 Shine Journal Poetry Contest, won the 2009 Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ G-20 Haiku Contest, and earned third prize in the 2007 RAWI Competition for Creative Prose. Her poetry and fiction–including poems from her new chapbook manuscript and chapters from her novel in progress, “Desert Storms”–have appeared widely. She lives in Friendship, both a Pittsburgh neighborhood and a state of mind.