7 PM WEDNESDAY
For our August installment we will be, in the words of board member and event organizer Cameron Barnett, “Cracking Open Monoliths.” Reader for this event will include Barnett, Dakota Garilli and Lee Ann Younger with our guest organization being The Garden of Peace Project
$5 suggested donation
biographical notes to follow
7PM, LAST WEDNESDAY OF FEBRUARY, the Bridge Series is back in a new spot.
We are happy to kick off season three of The Bridge Series at the Ace Hotel on Wedneday Feburary 27. Our featured organization will be Casa San Jose with readers Malcolm Friend, Pam Goldman and Geeta Kothari.
$5 suggested donation
Thanks to our board members Ellen McGrath Smith and Cameron Barnett for putting this event together.
Bio details to follow
Casa San José is a Pittsburgh-based community resource center that advocates for and empowers Latinos by promoting integration and self-sufficiency. Opened in 2013 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, Case San José has helped over 1,000 immigrants navigate the legal, health care, and social service systems to thrive in their new home. Representing this agency will be Sister Janice Vanderneck, Case San José’s director of Civic Engagement.
Pam Goldman is a fiction writer living in Pittsburgh. Her story, “Partisan,” is coming out in the spring issue of Colorado Review. She is also an activist and people’s lawyer who has worked
with the Mud Creek, KY community in obtaining a functioning water system; Iranian students protesting against the Shah; striking coal miners; people with AIDS, early in the epidemic; prisoners serving excessive sentences of the mass incarceration system; prisoners fighting for their rights while incarcerated; political prisoners in the high security unit of the Lexington federal prison; battered women, before shelters existed; activists from Standing Rock. Today,
she is a volunteer at Casa San José. Between 1980 and 1981, she spent almost every waking moment of helping 287 Haitian refugees who had fled the vicious regime of Baby Doc Duvalier and who were incarcerated in federal prison in Lexington, KY. The Haitians sought to remain in the United States and apply for political asylum and, of course, to be released from prison.Malcolm Friend is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, WA. He received his BA from Vanderbilt University and his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He
is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry, 2017) and the full-length collection Our Bruises Kept Singing Purple (Inlandia, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. He is also a member of the Afrocaribbean poetry duo Black Plantains with JR Mahung.Geeta Kothari is the nonfiction editor of the Kenyon Review. Her writing has appeared in various anthologies and journals, including New England Review, Massachusetts Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Best American Essays. Her short story collection, I Brake for Moose and Other Stories was published in 2017, and she is a recipient of a 2018 Creative Development Grant sponsored by The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Don Wentworth says,
Thursday, December 6th, at 7pm at White Whale Bookstore (thanks Jill & Adlai!), I will be participating in the reading listed below, which is a benefit for the ACLU. The stated goal of the reading “involves solidarity, camaraderie, free expression, holiday spirit and hope for the future. And yes, we could all use some good cheer.” The work I’ll be reading – a ghazal, two lyric poems, and a handful of haiku – will try to touch all those bases
It is an honor to be part of this event with its amazing array of top notch poets. We will each be reading for a maximum of 7-8 minutes and Joan, as always, will keep things moving. Books by all the poets will be available to purchase and, if you haven’t seen White Whale’s stock of poetry, as well as fiction, non-fiction, and children’s items, now is the perfect time.
BILL OF RIGHTS READING
Thursday, December 6, 2018, 7 pm @ White Whale Bookstore Join us in support of Freedom of Expression and the Bill of Rights
A Benefit for the ACLU / Co-hosted by Joan E. Bauer & Emily Mohn-Slate. There is a suggested donation of $5 but all our welcome regardless. Our readers will be:
Cameron Barnett Adriana Ramirez
Sheila Carter-Jones Mike Schneider
Malcolm Friend Justin Vicari
Celeste Gainey Arlene Weiner
Joy Katz Don Wentworth
I hope to see you there.
best,
Don
Cameron Barnett holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was poetry editor for Hot Metal Bridge, and co-coordinator of Pitt’s Speakeasy Reading Series. He teaches middle school at Falk Laboratory School, and is an associate poetry editor for Pittsburgh Poetry Review. His first collection, The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water (Autumn House Press, 2018), was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.
Sheila L. Carter-Jones is the author of Three Birds Deep selected by Elizabeth Alexander as the 2012 winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Book Award and the chapbook Blackberry Cobbler Song. Her chapbook Crooked Star Dreambook was named Honorable Mention for the 2013 New York Center for Book Arts Chapbook Contest. Sheila is a fellow of Cave Canem, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a Walter Dakin Fellow of the 2015 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She has been described by Herbert Woodward Martin as one who writes with “immediacy of tone, voice and language.”
Malcolm Friend is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He received his BA from Vanderbilt University and his MFA from theUniversity of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry, 2017), and has received awards and fellowships from organizations including CantoMundo, VONA/Voices of Our Nations, Backbone Press, the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics, and the University of Memphis. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including La Respuesta magazine, Vinyl, Word Riot, The Acentos Review, and Pretty Owl Poetry. His first full-length book of poetry, Our Brusies Kept Singing Purple, the winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize, was published by the Inlandia Institute in 2018.
Celeste Gainey is the author of the full-length poetry collection, the GAFFER (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2015), and the chapbook In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize. The first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, she has spent many years working with light in film and architecture. www.celestegainey.com
Joy Katz is an American poet and writer. Her work in progress, White: An Abstract, documents every minute of whiteness in her life. She has three poetry collections—All You Do is Perceive, a National Poetry Series finalist and a Stahlecker Selection at Four Way Books, The Garden Room (Tupelo), and Fabulae (SIU)—plus a chapbook, Which From That Time (Argos Books). With Kevin Prufer, she co-edited the anthology Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems (University of Illinois). She has received grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Heinz Foundation, and the NEA, as well as a Wallace Stegner fellowship. She teaches in CarlowUniversity’s Madwomen in the Attic workshops and in Chatham University’s MFA program and is an editor-at-large for Copper Nickel. She lives in Pittsburgh.
Adriana E. Ramírez is a Mexican-Colombian nonfiction writer, storyteller, critic, and performance poet based in Pittsburgh. She’s the winner of the 2015 PEN/Fusion Emerging Writer’s Prize, for her nonfiction novella, Dead Boys (Little A, 2016). In 2016, she was named “Critic At Large” by the Los Angeles Times’ Book Section. Her writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Guernica/ PEN America, Convolution, HEArt, Apogee, and Nerve.com. She is the author of two small-press poetry books—The Swallows (Blue Sketch Press, reissued 2016) and Trusting in Imaginary Spaces (Tired Hearts Press, 2010)—as well as the nonfiction editor of DISMANTLE (Thread Makes Blanket Press, 2014). Ramírez co-founded Aster(ix) Journal in 2013 with novelist Angie Cruz. Aster(ix) is a literary arts journal dedicated to social justice, as well as giving voice to the censored and the marginalized. Once a nationally ranked slam poet, she co-founded the Pittsburgh Poetry Collective (home of the Steel City Slam) and the infamous Nasty Slam, while continuing to perform on stages around the country. She was featured in the 2014 Legends of Poetry Slam Showcase and TEDxHouston, as well as the 2016 Three Rivers Arts Festival. Her debut full-length nonfiction book, The Violence, is forthcoming from Scribner (2018).
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?
Justin Vicari has won awards from Third Coast, New Millennium Writings, and Plan B Press. His first collection of poems, The Professional Weepers (Pavement Saw, 2011), received the Transcontinental Award. He has also authored several books of literary, film and philosophical theory, including Male Bisexuality in Current Cinema: Images of Growth, Rebellion and Survival (McFarland, 2001), Nicholas Winding Rfn and the Violence of Art (McFarland, 2014), and Japanese Film an the Floating Mind: Cinematic Contemplations of Being (McFarland, 2016) He is also a translator of Paul Eluard, Jean Sénac, J.-K. Huysmans, Francoise Emmanuel and Octava Mirbeau. His second full-length book of poetry, In Search of Lost Joy, was published by Main Street Rag in 2018.
Arlene Weiner is the author of two poetry collections: City Bird (Ragged Sky, 2016) and Escape Velocity (Ragged Sky, 2006), of which Poet Joy Katz wrote, “I want to keep my favorite of these beautifully alert, surprising poems with me as I grow old.” A MacDowell Colony fellow in 2008, Arlene has been a Shakespeare scholar, a cardiology technician, a college instructor, an editor, and a research associate in educational applications of cognitive science. Her poetry has been published in journals including Off the Coast, Pleiades, Poet Lore, and U.S. 1 Worksheets, anthologized, and read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac. She also writes plays. Her play Findings was produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Company in March 2017.
Don Wentworth‘s work reflects his interest in the revelatory nature of brief, haiku-like moments in every day life. His poetry has appeared in Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Rolling Stone, as we l as a number of anthologies. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections published by Six Gallery Press: Past All Traps (2011), Yield to the Willow (2014), and With a Deepening Presence (2016). Past All Traps was shortlisted for the Haiku Foundation’s 2011 Touchstone Distinguished Books Award. His poem “hiding” was selected as one of “100 Notable Haiku” of 2013 by Modern Haiku Press. Don has two new poetry books forthcoming: a collection of ghazals from Low Ghost and a collaborative collection of tanka written with the British haiku poet, Joy McCall. Since 1989, he has been the editor and publisher of Lilliput Review.
7PM THURSDAY…
4 locals reading poems & prose.
Taylor has a collection of great short stories called Off Days coming soon from Low Ghost Press & one up at Hobart called “Wrong and Dangerous” you can read right now. Cameron, Bart, & Scott will bring only the finest poems & also beer, if history is any guide. Please listen to the poems & prose responsibly.
7PM TONIGHT…
Join us in the highly anticipated Book Release celebration of Nasty Women & Bad Hombres: A Poetry Anthology, featuring 92 poets from across the U.S. responding to the first year of Trumpiness. This free event features 20 poets! Join us on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 7pm at South Side’s literary mecca, the Tiki Lounge (2003 East Carson St., 15203). Can’t make it? Books will be available via Amazon and fine local bookstores. Special book price for the evening is $15 – though the event is free.
Nasty Women & Bad Hombres was edited by Deena November and Nina Padolf, and published by Lascaux Editions (Bob Ziller, Editor) cover by Vanessa German.Reading lineup includes:
Susan Truxell Sauter
Jan Beatty
Sheena Carroll
Lainey Carslaw
Christine Telfer
Angele Ellis
Cameron Barnett
Don Wentworth
Justin Vicari
Joan Bauer
Kayla Sargeson
Ellen Mcgrath Smith
Bri Griffith
Bob Walicki
Angela Gaito-Lagnese
John Stupp
Daniel Shapiro
John Lawson
Kathleen Furbee
Sarah Williams-Devereux
Ann Curran
Madalyn Hochendoner
Leslie McIlroyMore details to be announced…
THIS SATURDAY…
Join us 4pm, Saturday, January 21st at Staghorn Garden Cafe (517 Greenfield Ave 15207) to help raise funds to donate to national and local organizations and listen to only a handful of the dynamite poets we will be publishing in our forthcoming Anthology titled, Nasty Woman & Bad Hombre!
Reading line up includes:
Angele Ellis
Cameron Barnett
Kayla Sargeson
Daniel Shapiro
Michael Albright
RB Becca Mertz
Sarah Williams-Devereux
John Stupp
Deena November
Nina Padolf
Ellen McGrath Smith
Bob Walicki
And more!We are still accepting submissions (details below) as well as funds (link below) and donations to raffle off at this event (PM Deena November if you have an item or service you can contribute to our fundraising raffle).
Nasty Woman & Bad Hombre Anthology will be published by Lascaux Editions in the summer of 2017! This anthology seeks poetry, creative non-fiction essays, short stories and art that address reactions to the election. A gofundme page for publication/printing costs has been established. All proceeds will be donated to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Pittsburgh Women’s Shelter and The Art House in Homewood. Please send 1-3 poems or up to 5 pages prose and a brief bio to november@rmu.edu
Submission deadline now extended to February 17, 2017.Donations: https://www.gofundme.com/nastywomanandbadhombreanthology
Six Gallery Press 