Archive for Fred Shaw

6/29 White Whale Bookstore Presents Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series feat. Paola Corso & Jason Irwin

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2021 by 6GPress

TONIGHT, ON THE INTERNET…

Week 5 of Pittsburgh’s 2021 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series! Co-hosted and curated by Joan E. Bauer & Kristofer Collins.

About this event

White Whale Bookstore is thrilled and honored to help Joan E. Bauer and Kristofer Collins virtually host the 2021 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series! Our lineup for Week 5 features Daniela Buccilli, Paola Corso, Jason Irwin, Rachel Mennies, and Fred Shaw.

Browse our whole ready-to-ship website, which also has a wide selection of recommended and best-selling books, store merch, book subscription boxes, and more. You can request specific books you don’t see on the sitethrough this form, too. All orders ship from our store in Pittsburgh.

Some of these writers’ books are available on our Bookshop.org list for recent and upcoming events. Check out our curated lists and picks on our main Bookshop.org affiliate page, or use the search bar in the upper center-right to look for any book. (Using the book’s ISBN usually works best.)

This event will be hosted on Zoom. You’ll receive the link to the Zoom meeting the day of the event via email. Free registration/ticket sales will end at 6:30pm ET on 6/29. Please email events@whitewhalebookstore.com if you miss this cut-off and need a ticket. For questions, check out our FAQ for events here.

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About the Hemingway’s Series:

The Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series was founded by Jimmy Cvetic in 1974 or thereabouts. It is co-hosted and curated by Joan E. Bauer & Kristofer Collins. You can RSVP to all the events in this series right here on our Eventbrite page or through www.whitewhalebookstore.com/events. An eight-week series on Tuesdays mostly, running May 4-August 10 @ 7 p.m. ET. Check out the audio archive of past series at www.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com.

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About tonight’s writers:

Daniela Buccilli’s poetry can be found in South Dakota Review, Pennsylvania English, Coal River Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Cimarron Review. She has been anthologized a few times, including in the latest edition of Voices from the Attic. She co-edited the poetry anthology Show Us Your Papers. Her chapbook, What it Takes to Carry, was published by Main Street Rag. She reads for Pittsburgh Poetry Journal. She mentors for the Madwomen. She teaches high school.

Paola Corso’s books are set in her native Pittsburgh, where her Italian immigrant family members were steel workers, most recently Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps, The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of the Tillie Olsen Prize in Creative Writing, Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing, a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Awardee, and Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories. She is cofounder and resident artist of Steppin Stanzas, a grant-awarded poetry and art project celebrating city steps. She splits her time between New York’s grid and Pittsburgh’s grade. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitors, Women’s Review of Books, U.S Catholic, The Progressive and other journals. For more, go to : http://www.paolacorso.com

Jason Irwin is the author of the three collections of poetry: The History of Our Vagrancies (Main Street Rag), A Blister of Stars (Low Ghost, 2016), Watering the Dead (Pavement Saw Press, 2008), & the chapbook Some Days It’s A Love Story (Slipstream Press, 2005). He has also had nonfiction published in IO Literary Journal, Cleaver Magazine, & The Crux. He grew up in Dunkirk, NY, and now lives in Pittsburgh. www.jasonirwin.blogspot.com

Rachel Mennies is the author of the poetry collections The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021), and The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, the 2014 winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poety at Texas Tech University Press and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award.

Fred Shaw was named Emerging Poet Laureate Finalist for Allegheny County in 2020. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, and Carlow University, where he received his MFA. He teaches writing and literature at Point Park University and Carlow University. His first collection, Scraping Away, was recently published by CavanKerry Press. He is a book reviewer and Poetry Editor for Pittsburgh Quarterly, and his poem, “Argot,” is featured in the 2018 full-length documentary, Eating & Working & Eating & Working. The film focuses on the lives of local service-industry workers. His poem “Scraping Away” was selected for the PA Public Poetry Project in 2017. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and rescued hound dog.

Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps by Paola Corso

Posted in Events, Interviews, New Releases with tags , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2020 by 6GPress

Appreciate the city steps? Then you might also appreciate Paola Corso‘s new book.

In Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps, Paola Corso celebrates public stairways in her native Pittsburgh and around the world. Inspired by her Sicilian grandfather, a stonemason who built concrete steps, and her Calabrian grandfather and father, steelworkers who once climbed them to the mill, Corso is a storyteller. She shares memories of her family, the history behind Pittsburgh having more public staircases than any other city in the country, and curiosities about some of the world’s most famous steps. Vertical Bridges includes photos by the author along with archival photos from the University of Pittsburgh Library’s Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection.

Here’s what some other discerning step appreciators had to say about it:

“Under Corso’s nimble juggling of words and images, Pittsburgh’s staircases become a series of paths leading elsewhere—from China to Norway, from Italy back to the Three Rivers again. Together these narratives construct a fascinating ecology of urban spaces, emphasizing the delicate lives and quotidian strength of those who climb up and down: workers, immigrants, children, lovers. In each direction, these poetic flights offer an all-encompassing view.”
—LAURA E. RUBERTO, author of Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women’s Work in Italy and the U.S. and co-editor of New Italian Migrations to the United States, Vol. 1 and 2

“I have expressed Pittsburgh’s city steps using maps and photographs. Here Paola Corso has done so with words and style, imagery and feelings. She offers a delightful way to experience the steps, not only in Pittsburgh but around the world.”
—BOB REGAN, author of Pittsburgh Steps and Bridges of Pittsburgh

“Pittsburghers will love Paola Corso’s mix of poetry and poetic imagery, from histories of the city’s staircases to stories that unfolded along them over time. It’s good to see the stairways being celebrated, preserved, and loved—in print and in real life.”
—BRIAN A. BUTKO, author of Greetings from the Lincoln Highway and editor of Western Pennsylvania History magazine

“In poems contemplative, lyric, hybrid, and explosive, Corso stays true to her working-class roots. Though the altitude is often dizzying, the elevation is well worth it—and the best of poems, like these, always give us a touch of vertigo. This is a remarkably imaginative book, replete with stunning archival photographs and equally stunning photographs by Corso herself. A marvel!”
—JOSEPH BATHANTI, author of The Life of the World to Come and East Liberty

So far it’s available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org, & probably elsewhere. Booksellers can get it direct from Ingram.

PAOLA CORSO’s books are set in her native Pittsburgh, where her Italian immigrant family members were steel workers, most recently The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of the Tillie Olsen Prize in Creative Writing, Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing, a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Awardee, and Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories. She is cofounder and resident artist of Steppin Stanzas, a grant-awarded poetry and art project celebrating city steps. She splits her time between New York’s grid and Pittsburgh’s grade.

Here are some recent interviews Paola did with other authors about their books, over at CavanKerry Press

Tina Kelly

Fred Shaw

& here’s what Paola has going on & coming up.

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Collective will hold its annual OPEN STUDIO TOUR on Friday-Sunday, November 6-8, 14-15, and 21-22, 2020 at Ossam Gallery and Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Gallery in Brooklyn. Paola will display her  COLOR COLLAGES of city steps.
STEP WALK AND POETRY READING on Sunday, December 6 from 10-noon and 2-4 pm in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Paola will read from her new book, VERTICAL BRIDGES: POEMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF CITY STEPS.  Hosted by Danny Kessler.
Check back for more events here.
Paola will be a featured reader for the Italian American Writers Association via Zoom on Saturday, March 27, 2021. There will be an Open Mic from 6-7 p.m. and Featured Readers 7-8 p.m. More details to come.
The Carnegie Public Library-Oakmont Branch will exhibit Paola’s PHOTOGRAPHS of city steps and color collages the month of July 2021 along with a poetry reading and book signing. More details to come.
Paola will also post updates on her FACEBOOK PAGE.

Stay tuned for reviews & more (online, for the foreseeable future) events & updates, including a reading hosted by Pittsburgh’s White Whale Bookstore in February.

4/17 Virtual Versify: Eidolon, Ellis, Mcilroy, Moody, & Shaw

Posted in Events with tags , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2020 by 6GPress

8 PM THIS FRIDAY on your rectangle…

Join us for a very special virtual reading via Zoom, featuring Anna Eidolon, Angele Ellis, Leslie Anne Mcilroy, Jonathan Moody, and Fred Shaw!

There will also be an open mic, so bring poems!

Connection information is below. We will be live around 7:30 to work out any kinks, so feel free to join either meeting at that time, whether you are participating or just listening in!

The URL to connect via internet with a computer/pad/smart phone is https://zoom.us/j/466459462
https://zoom.us/j/249258433?pwd=d29xWFR6SHdWT2RkZDR6SFdteExJdz09

When you click on that, Zoom will just come up and connect if you have used it before on that device.

If not, you will be asked to allow Zoom to be installed.
When prompted enter the meeting ID and password below:

Meeting ID: 249 258 433

Password: 257632

If you are unable to connect you can simply dial in (audio only) as you would a normal phone call. When you dial in, you will be prompted to key in the meeting ID and password

One tap mobile

+16465588656,,249258433#,,#,257632# US (New York)

+13126266799,,249258433#,,#,257632# US (Chicago)

Dial by your location

+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)

+1 253 215 8782 US

+1 301 715 8592 US

+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Meeting ID: 249 258 433

Password: 257632

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/acCqKyk0yA

Hosted by Bob Walicki.

9/14 Kemrer, Shaw, Walicki @ City Books

Posted in Events with tags , , , on September 3, 2019 by 6GPress

Come join us on Saturday, September 14th at 7pm at City Books on the North Side as we celebrate the poetry of Alexandra Kemrer, Fred Shaw and Robert Walicki!

7/23 Meet The Press! @ EEBX

Posted in Events with tags , , , , , , , on July 21, 2015 by 6GPress

THIS THURSDAY…

The Lower Forty-Eight CP review & Menesini performance video

Posted in Events, Reviews with tags , , , , , , on October 16, 2014 by 6GPress

The Lower Forty-Eight was reviewed in this week’s City Paper! & here’s a fun video of John Menesini performing at last month’s Karl Hendricks benefit.