7/23 Triple Book Launch: Ally Malinenko, Jason Irwin, & John Grochalski @ EEBX

7PM THIS SATURDAY…

Low Ghost Press & Six Gallery Press are hosting a sizzling summer book party! Join us for a triple launch for Ally Malinenko’s ‘Better Luck Next Year’ (Low Ghost Press), Jason Irwin’s ‘A Blister of Stars’ (Low Ghost Press), and John Grochalski’s ‘Wine Clerk’ (Six Gallery Press).

East End Book Exchange
Saturday, July 23
7pm
BYOB
A brief q&a will follow the reading

Yes, THREE books will be released on this historic day! If you don’t know Low Ghost, learn all about it from the man himself, Kris Collins, recently interviewed by the indispensable Littsburgh. Thanks to them for getting the word out about this, & to Joan Bauer, who boosted it on her mailing list too.

Ally’s book you can read about on her blog. It’s great.

Jason’s book you can read about on his blog. It’s also great.

Which brings us to John Grochalski & his new novel Wine Clerk, which is also great as well.

Check out these blurbs, particularly the last sentence of Dave Newman’s.

Rand Wyndham knows it’s all a sham. He knows the game is rigged. Like all of us, Grochalski’s character is stealing crumbs in the spiritual and cultural void of modern America. Read this book and admit your dreams are a painful lie we’re better off without. —Jason Baldinger, author of The Lady Pittsburgh

Rand Wyndham returns in Wine Clerk, John Grochalski’s follow-up to his 2013 novel The Librarian. This time, Wyndam is working in a wine emporium, slugging it out with a motley crew familiar to anyone who’s worked on the lower rungs of the service industry. Grochalski serves up his peculiar vision of the American nightmare with a heady mix of wit and pathos, delivering a bitter dose of the everyday in all its quotidian absurdity. It’s engaging. It’s frightening. It’s funny. It’s the pitch-perfect reflection of the current inebriated state of the American monster. —Larry Duncan, author of Drunk on Ophelia

My best advice to the reading public is to buy or steal John Grochalski’s bottle of a book Wine Clerk, pop its cork, savor its fast food bouquet, hold it up in the light of a Labatt Blue sign to appreciate its bile-brown color, then guzzle the shit down like vintage Thunderbird and prepare to croak as you puke to death from disgust or wild laughter, or your brain rots and runs out your ears like zombie snot. Gentle readers, if you drink this bottle of a book you will not get into heaven. Quite simply, if you read this book and die from disgust or laughter, you are fucked. —Chuck Kinder, author of The Silver Ghost

John Grochalski’s is a line that extends back to Steinbeck and Sinclair and up through Fante and Bukowski. Wine Clerk is another brilliant evocation of how miserable the world can be and how surviving with a drink in a dive bar is our only shot at victory. Drop all the boxes in the warehouse. Run from the temp agency. If you want to understand what it means to be working poor in the richest country in the world, read Grochalski’s excellent new novel. Read everything he’s written and everything he’s going to write. —Dave Newman, author of Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children

Check out Grochalski’s poem “The Wine Clerk” on his blog. Check out his Twitter, where he’s been posting lil bits of the novel. & most definitely check out East End Book Exchange next Saturday to hear John, Ally, & Jason read from their newborn works.

7/28 A Hellbender Reading w/ Mark Spitzer, Lea Graham, & Co. @ EEBX

THURSDAY, JULY 28th…

Mark Spitzer has a new book out from Anaphora Literary Press about the wonderful hellbender, North America’s largest salamander!

Hear Mark read from his epic poem along with poet Lea Graham & local Six Gallery stalwarts Che Elias, Karen Lillis, John Thomas Menesini, & Don Wentworth… or risk the wrath of the hellbender!

UPDATE:

As animal names go, “hellbender” is a pretty good one. So if Mark Spitzer’s book-length poem about North America’s largest salamander (which can grow to more than 2 feet long) is titled Glurk! (Anaphora Literary Press) instead, it’s for reasons you’ll have to learn for yourself when the Arkansas-based author reads at East End Book Exchange. Tonight’s reading, backed by music made on the custom-made stringed instrument called The Electric Hellbender, also includes words from New York-based poet Lea Graham and local luminaries Che Elias, Karen Lillis, John Thomas Menesini and Don Wentworth. Bill O’Driscoll 7 p.m. 4754 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. Free. 412-224-2847

Pittsburgh City Paper

6/4 On Returning: Welcome Back Nikki Allen @ EEBX

7PM THIS SATURDAY…

Former Pittsburgh Poet Nikki Allen is returning to town for a vist and we’re celebrating with a night of poetry at East End Book Exchange. Readers for the night include Renee Alberts, Nikki Allen, Jason Baldinger, Dan Shapiro, Scott Silsbe and Vanessa Vesch. The shindig will be hosted by Red Bob Junghanz.

This event is free! This event is BYOB! I believe this will be the first event held by the new owners of EEBX so there will be plenty to celebrate.

Bios to follow for those that read those kinda things

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. He’s traveled the country and written a few books, the latest of which are The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press). A short litany of publishing credits include Blast Furnace, The Glassblock, Lilliput Review, Green Panda Press, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, In Between Hangovers, Your One Phone Call and Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. You can hear audio versions of some poems on Bandcamp, just type in his name.

Dan Shapiro is the author of How the Potato Chip Was Invented (sunnyoutside press), Heavy Metal Fairy Tales (Throwback Books), and The 44th-Worst Album Ever (NAP Books). His work has appeared in Word Riot, Barrelhouse, Menacing Hedge, Forklift, Ohio, and elsewhere. He is a poetry and reviews editor for Pittsburgh Poetry Review.

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems and prose have appeared in numerous periodicals including Kitchen Sink, Third Coast, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, The Chariton Review, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is the author of two poetry collections: Unattended Fire (Six Gallery Press: 2012) and The River Underneath the City (Low Ghost Press: 2013; 2nd ed.: 2015). He was also a finalist for the Cultural Weekly’s 2014 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize. He is currently at work on a new collection of poems.

5/21 Versify Presents: Baldinger, Korn, Joy, Williams @ EEBX

THIS SATURDAY…

Come join us for what promises to be another fantastic Versify reading, featuring, Jason Baldinger, John Korn, Chuck Joy and Cee Williams!! Hosted by Bob Walicki.

5/12 Gloom Hearts & Opioids launch @ East End Book Exchange

THIS THURSDAY…

Join herbivorous scribbler John Thomas Menesini & friends Megan Bell, Meghan Tutolo, & Angele Ellis at EEBX for one of the last events under the Lesley Rains admin. Pocket-sized for your convenience & pleasure, Gloom Hearts & Opioids is a collection of frivolous goth excess w/ a little bit not like that at all. Here’s a taste, from “Sexting w/ Yr Mom”:

everything comes to an end
our sun is no exception
sure, our sun has millions of good years
left but its eventual doom is certain

i imagine me & yr mom in space
(what’s it like to come in space?)
i imagine space is too cold for yr mom
but i bet she’d remember to bring a sweater

Happy Mom’s Day & enjoy the spring weather!

3/26 Jason Baldinger, Jim D. Deuchars, Richard L. Gegick, & Lori Jakiela @ EEBX; Scott Pyle & Don Wentworth @ Percolate

THIS SATURDAY, 7PM…

Saturday Night March 26 we’ll be celebrating, that right just plain old celebrating, no special occasions or homecomings, although I heard this spring thing is pretty great. There will be three excellent local poets to entertain you in the person(s) of Lori Jakiela , Jim Deuchars, Rich Gegick and Jason Baldinger. This is event is free, The event is byob. The event is comfortable in both heels and flats. Hope to see yinz there

The following is biographcal information for those that are interested:

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. Somewhere in time, he has traveled the country, and written a few books, the latest of which are The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and the chapbook The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press). A short litany of publishing credits include Blast Furnace, B.E. Quarterly, Lilliput Review, Green Panda Press, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Glass Block and Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. You can also hear audio of some poems on the bandcamp website by just typing in his name.

Jim D. Deuchars is an American poet born in Waukesha, WI. He currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA. His poetry has been called “a special brand of doggerel, nonsense and fufaraw”. His performance style has been described as “like Gallagher, but with poems instead of watermelons”.

Richard L. Gegick is from Trafford, PA. His short stories and poems have appeared in various magazines. He’s a waiter, and writes mostly about being a waiter.
Chat Conversation End

Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoirs Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books), Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette) and The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press), as well as the poetry collection Spot the Terrorist (Turning Point) and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. A new chapbook, Big Fish, will be published in April by Stranded Oak Press.

Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Rumpus, Brevity and more. Her essays have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize many times, and she received the 2015 City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize, which sent her to Brussels, Belgium on a month-long writing residency.

She has also received a Golden Quill Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, was a working-scholar at The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.

She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, the writer Dave Newman, and their children. A former flight attendant and journalist, she now teaches in the writing programs at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and Chatham University, and is a co-director of Chautauqua Institution’s Summer Writing Festival.

&…

Robert Isenberg Returns: 2/18 The Green Season @ EEBX & 2/19 Elizabeth Crowne & the Vaudeville Conspiracy @ Arcade Comedy Theater

THIS THURSDAY…

Expat writer Robert Isenberg will read from his new book, The Green Season at East End Book Exchange.

Thursday, February 18th, 7-9pm. Free and open to everyone.

In 2013, Robert Isenberg sold all his belongings, bought a plane ticket, and moved to Costa Rica. There he worked as a staff reporter for The Tico Times, zigzagging across the country in search of stories.

The Green Season is a collection of essays, profiles, and travelogues written during his first year in Central America. The first book from The Tico Times Publishing Group, The Green Season is a love letter to the world’s happiest country: Readers meet national heroes, surf instructors, indigenous crafters, and survivors of the sex trade. Throughout, Isenberg uses his trademark humor and observation to illustrate the country’s complex cultural landscape.

About Robert Isenberg:
Born and raised in Vermont, Isenberg is author of The Green Season (The Tico Times Publications Group) The Archipelago (Autumn House Press), and Wander, a poetry collection (Six Gallery Press). An award-winning writer and stage actor, Isenberg has contributed to such diverse publications as Lonely Planet, McSweeney’s, Mental_Floss, The Christian Science Monitor, and Pittsburgh Magazine. His many stage-plays have received enthusiastic reviews, as has his Pittsburgh Monologue Project, a stand-up performance series based on overheard conversations (co-authored with Brad Keller). He earned his MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Chatham University, where he served as Whitford Fellow, the program’s highest honor. He has taught for Duquesne University and currently teaches for Arizona State University. A proud New Englander, he has traveled to 35 countries on five continents. He currently lives in Arizona and contributes to The Phoenix New Times.

& THIS FRIDAY…

An original radio play written by Robert Isenberg
and produced by No Name Players

Why would three ordinary men risk their lives to rob a bank? Who put them up to it? And what does all this have to do with an old vaudeville theater? Only one woman can solve this riddle—Elizabeth Crowne, Uncannologist.

In the beloved tradition of vintage serials, Arcade Comedy Theater presents Elizabeth Crowne and the Vaudeville Conspiracy, a live radio drama “broadcasting” on Feb. 19, 2016, at 8 p.m. The show is packed with suspense, paranormal mystery, and witty one-liners.

Elizabeth Crowne is produced by the acclaimed No Name Players and directed by artistic director Don DiGiulio. The cast includes such local stars as Karen Baum, Tressa Glover, and John Feightner, with live music by Jesse Landis-Eigsti.

Written by longtime Pittsburgh writer Robert Isenberg, the script is an extension of his pulp fiction stories, The Adventures of Elizabeth Crowne. The first volume of this series, The Mysterious Tongue of Dr. Vermilion, was released by Backpack Media at the end of 2015.

$10/$5 student rush. BYOB

Stay tuned as the tour continues in March, w/ a TBD reading for AWP & two more in Arizona!

2/4 Pittsburgh Poetry Roadshow Presents Beatty, Gainey, Ellis, Wolf, Scott, & Patterson @ EEBX

THIS THURSDAY AT 7PM…

Join us for a great night of poetry with PPR Issue contributors and Madwomen Jan Beatty, Celeste Gainey, Angele Ellis, Laurin Wolf, Wendy Scott, and Laura Patterson!

1/30 Staghorn Poetry Series feat. Taylor Grieshober & Angele Ellis + Pittsburgh Poetry Roadshow feat. Scott Silsbe, Kris Collins, Jason Baldinger, Meghan Tutolo, Jason Irwin, & Dan Shapiro @ EEBX

THIS SATURDAY…

Let’s start this year off with a bang! Staghorn Poetry Series presents a dynamite reading with Taylor Grieshober and Angele Ellis at 4pm on Saturday, January 30th at the cozy Staghorn Garden Cafe (517 Greenfield ave. 15207).

Bios:
Taylor Grieshober is co-director of the New Yinzer Presents as well as a founding member of Belleville, a Wilkinsburg art collective. Her fiction has most recently appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn and her book reviews can be found at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Taye Diggs began following her on Twitter last summer and it made her year, until she discovered that Taye Diggs is indiscriminate and follows a million other regular people just like her. Nevertheless, she still really wants to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway.

Angele Ellis believes that the Staghorn Poetry Series is a bridge of words with many connections to Greenfield. Author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery Press)—whose poems won her a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts—and Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors’ Choice Chapbook), her poems, fiction, and reviews have appeared in over fifty publications and ten anthologies. She also is a contributing editor to Al Jadid Magazine.

& THEN AT 7…

Come on out all ye yinzers and friends to hear 6 fine local poets hold forth: Scott Silsbe, Kris Collins, Jason Baldinger, Meghan Tutolo, Jason Irwin and Dan Shapiro will be reading their work from PPR as well as from their own books.

Copies of PPR Issue One and 2016 subscriptions will be available, as well as books by the individual readers. Beer, wine, and light snacks will be available.

SCOTT SILSBE was born in Detroit. He now lives in Pittsburgh where he sells books, writes, and makes music. His poems have appeared in numerous print and web periodicals including
Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, The Chariton Review, Third Coast, and the Cultural Weekly. He is the author of two poetry collections: Unattended Fire (Six Gallery Press, 2012) and The River Underneath the City (Low Ghost Press, 2013).

KRISTOFER COLLINS is the Books Editor at Pittsburgh Magazine. He runs Low Ghost Press. He also owns Desolation Row Records and manages Caliban Bookshop in Oakland. His most recent poetry collection is Local Conditions (CSB 2015).

JASON BALDINGER has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. Somewhere in time he has traveled the country and wrote a few books, the latest of which The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and the chapbook The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press), as well as the anthologies Lipsmack! (Night Ballet Press) and Good Noise (Thrasher Press) and Free Monster Poems About Monsters (Hyacinth Girl Press), are all available now. A short litany of publishing credits include: The New Yinzer, Shatter Wig Press, Blast Furnace, B.E. Quarterly and Fuck Art, Let’s Dance, WISH Publications, Green Panda Press and Lilliput Review. You can also hear audio of some poems on the bandcamp website by just typing in his name.

When MEGHAN TUTOLO isn’t writing romance about Italian foods or grading essays, she can be found doodling galaxies, playing her ukulele (horribly) or spilling her guts into Moleskines. Meghan earned her M.F.A. in Poetry from Chatham University, her B.A. in English Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and OCD, ADHD, etc. from genetics, probably. Her work has appeared in journals such as Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Arsenic Lobster and Main Street Rag. Her first chapbook of poems, Little As Living, was published in September 2014.

JASON IRWIN is the author of Watering the Dead (Pavement Saw Press, 2008), winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Award, and the chapbooks Where You Are (Night Ballet Press, 2014), & Some Days It’s A Love Story (Slipstream Press, 2005). He has also had work published in Poetry East, Sycamore Review, Confrontation, and Poetry Ireland Review, among others. His poem “Main Street” was nominated for a Pushcart. He grew up in Dunkirk, NY, and now lives in Pittsburgh. www.jasonirwin.blogspot.com

DANIEL M. SHAPIRO is a special education teacher who lives in Pittsburgh. His poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Chiron Review, RHINO, Menacing Hedge, Word Riot, and elsewhere. His book of celebrity-oriented poems, How the Potato Chip Was Invented, was published by sunnyoutside press on the last day of 2013.

1/16 Versify feat. Kris Collins, Angele Ellis, & Jonathan Moody @ EEBX

THIS SATURDAY…

Adapted from a forward from BOB WALICKI who curates this great series! 

Come join us in what promises to be another can’t–miss reading, 

in the kick off of the 2016 VERSIFY READING SERIES FEATURING: 

 

ANGELE ELLIS, KRISTOFER COLLINS 

and JONATHAN MOODY

 

There will be a book signing and author’s copies will be available for purchase! DON’T MISS IT!

 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16 / SPECIAL TIME 5-7 PM

 

EAST END BOOK EXCHANGE /4754 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15224

       Phone:(412) 224-2847

BIOS:

Angele Ellis saw Buddhist monks dancing under a theatre marquee featuring her haiku, after she won Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ G-20 Haiku Contest. She is the author of Arab On Radar (Six Gallery Press), which earned her an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Spared (a Main Street Rag Editors’ Choice Chapbook). Her poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in over fifty publications and ten anthologies—including Prime Number, Grasslimb, Mizna, Theian Journal, Rogue Agent, American Book Review,tinywords, and YEW. She is a contributing editor for Al Jadid Magazine, and lives in the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Kristofer Collins is the Books Editor at Pittsburgh Magazine, as well as being a frequent contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is the publisher of Low Ghost Press and Coleridge Street Books. He also manages Caliban Book Shop in Oakland (and owns Desolation Row Records located inside). His latest poetry collection Local Conditions was published in 2015. He lives in Stanton Heights, a hidden gem in Pittsburgh’s east end with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their three cats.

Jonathan Moody received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh as well as three fellowships from Cave Canem. His first book, The Doomy Poems, was published by Six Gallery Press in 2012; his second book, Olympic Butter Gold, won the 2014 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize. Moody’s poems have appeared in such journals as African American Review, Boston Review, The Common, and Harvard Review. He is a high school English teacher and lives in Fresno, Texas, with his wife and son.

10/5 McSweeney’s Poetry Series presents Daniel Khalastchi w/ Don Wentworth @ EEBX

THIS MONDAY…

“We walked to the sea with a bucket / and a hand rake. We dug out our / kidneys, put them in the bucket, then / waited for rain you said the weatherman / promised. On the beach, we lay tangled like the leashes of euthanized / house pets, red trails from our bodies / tied together at points, then keeping / a passionate, rational distance.” Poet Daniel Khalastchi, a first-generation Iraqi-American who’s also Jewish, works at the University of Iowa. Tonight, at East End Book Exchange, he reads from his new collection, Tradition (McSweeney’s) along with local poet Don Wentworth. BO 7 p.m. 4754 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. Free.

CP