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

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.

2/22 Tilted World by Bart Solarczyk release party @ Coffee Buddha

7 PM THIS SATURDAY…

It’s bittersweet, but we are happy to host and celebrate the release of our close friend Bart Solarczyk’s newest book of poetry: Tilted World, as one of the last events we have at Coffee Buddha. Come out and celebrate with us.

Bart will be doing a live read along with Jen Ashburn, Jason Irwin, & Bob Pajich

This event will be BYOB for the 21+ crowd. ID and $5 required if you bring booze. Spirits recommended as we will have our Mocktail menu available for mixers!

Come out and celebrate local!

11/3 Coffee w/ a Writer: Jason Baldinger @ Center for Literary Arts + Overhead from Longing launch @ C.C. Mellor Memorial Library + an evening of music & poetry @ White Whale

Busy day Saturday: three free events, two in Pittsburgh & one in Frostburg, MD.

10AM at Frostburg State University Center for Literary Arts…

Jason Baldinger is a poet hailing from Pittsburgh and recently finished a stint as writer in residence at the Osage Arts Community. He’s the author of several books, the most recent are This Useless Beauty (Alien Buddha Press), The Ugly Side of the Lake (Night Ballet Press) written with John Dorsey and the chaplet Fumbles Revelations (Grackle and Crow) which are available now. The collection Fragments of a Rainy Season (Six Gallery Press) and the split book with James Benger Little Fires Hiding (Spartan Press) are forthcoming. Recent publications include the Low Ghost Anthology Unconditional Surrender, The Dope Fiend Daily, Outlaw Poetry, Uppagus, Lilliput Review, Rusty Truck, Dirtbag Review, In Between Hangovers, Your One Phone Call, Winedrunk Sidewalk, Anti-Heroin Chic, Nerve Cowboy Concrete Meat Press, Zombie Logic Press, Ramingo’s Porch, Rye Whiskey Review, Red Fez, Mad Swirl, Blue Hour Review and Heartland! Poetry of Love, Solidarity and Resistance. You can hear Jason read poems on recent and forthcoming releases by Theremonster and Sub Pop Recording artist The Gotobeds as well as at jasonbaldinger.bandcamp.com

Coffee with a Writer is a montly informal reading and open discussion housed at the Center for Literary Arts. This event is free and open to the public.

2:30PM at C.C. Mellor Memorial Library…

Local poet Judith Brice and special guests Jen Ashburn, Joan E. Bauer and Robert Walicki will be reading selections of their work in honor of Brice’s second full-length poetry collection, Overhead from Longing.

Refreshments provided. Free admission.

Judith Brice is the author of Renditions in a Palette (David Robert Books, 2013) and Overhead From Longing (David Robert Books, 2018). Her more than 50 published poems have appeared previously in The Paterson Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, VoxPopuli.com and Versewrights.com, among many other national publications.

Jen Ashburn is the author of The Light on the Wall (Main Street Rag, 2016), and has work published or forthcoming in numerous venues, including The Writer’s Almanac, The MacGuffin, Whiskey Island and The Fourth River. She holds an MFA from Chatham University, where she taught creative writing to women in the Allegheny County Jail through Chatham’s Words Without Walls program.

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Her poems have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and in 2007 she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International. She co-hosts and curates the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series in Pittsburgh.

Robert Walicki is the author of A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press, 2015). His next collection, Black Angels, is forthcoming from Six Gallery Press. A Pushcart and a Best of the Net nominee, Walicki has been published in The City Paper, Fourth River, Signal Mountain Review, and Red River Review, among others.

Here‘s a page w/ more info about Judy’s book & some sample poems.

Last but not least, 7PM at White Whale Bookstore…

6/30 Fumbles Revelations Book Release @ Nine Stories

7PM…

Friday June 30th we welcome the inaugural release from Don Wentworth’s Grackle and Crow imprint with the release of the chaplet “Fumbles Revelations” by Jason Baldinger. Readers will include, Baldinger and Wentworth as well as Becky Corrigan, Jason Irwin and Red Bob Jungkunz. This event is free and byob and many thanks to Nine Stories for hosting.

here’s some bios:

Jason Baldinger is a poet hailing from the Appalachian hamlet of Pittsburgh. He’s the author of several books the most recent of which, the chaplet, Fumbles Revelations (Grackle and Crow) is available now, and the collection Fragments of a Rainy Season (Six Gallery Press) which is coming in September. Recent publications include the Low Ghost Anthology Unconditional Surrender, Uppagus, Lilliput Review, Rusty Truck, Dirtbag Review, In Between Hangovers, Your One Phone Call, Winedrunk Sidewalk, Anti-Heroin Chic, Nerve Cowboy Concrete Meat Press, Zombie Logic Review and Heartland! Poetry of Love, Solidarity and Resistance. You can hear Jason read some poems at jasonbaldinger.bandcamp.com.

Becky Corrigan has spent most of her adult life working menial jobs, playing in bands and not writing enough. Her body of work includes some ratty folders of poetry from the 90’s, several pieces of short fiction, and many years’ worth of journals. Mainly a prose writer, her work is usually autobiographical and focuses on mental health, love and poverty. She is currently writing a book of short essays about her life.

Jason Irwin is the author of A Blister of Stars (Low Ghost, 2016), 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 grew up in Dunkirk, NY, and now lives in Pittsburgh. www.jasonirwin.blogspot.com

Red Bob needs no introduction, all you need to know is that he is Bob

Don Wentworth is a Pittsburgh-based poet whose work reflects his interest in the revelatory nature of brief, haiku-like moments in everyday life. His poetry has appeared in Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, Frogpond and Rolling Stone, as well as a number of anthologies. He is the author of 3 full-length poetry collections published by Six Gallery Press: Past All Traps (2011), Yield to the Willow (2014), and With a Deepening Presence (2016) His first full-length collection, 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.

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.

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.

11/7 How to Be an American & Love Songs from Flood City launch party @ ModernFormations

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7TH, 8PM…

Here are some nice things people said about How to Be an American:

The poems in How to Be an American strike the chords of conversations we should be having, should have already had and resolved, or conversations that should be irrelevant. In this generation’s remake of democracy, Malinenko’s book is an incendiary device.
—Jason Baldinger, author of The Lower Forty-Eight

Ally Malinenko is the embodiment of what E.L. Doctorow meant when he said we need writers because we need witnesses to this terrifying century. In How to Be an American, she dissects the American dream and breaks it down to its petri-dish truths. Malinenko’s America is a country that exports ignorance and consumerism, where the greatest embarrassment is to be poor, vulnerable, and in need. In a voice as direct and unstoppable as an ambulance, Malinenko paints a raw, visceral, and essential portrait of a country without pity, without compassion, and makes the need for change feel like the emergency it is.
—Lori Jakiela, author of Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe

Ally Malinenko has an exceptional ability to observe life and write honestly. She is an absolute treasure.
—Moriah LaChapell, editor of The Blue Hour

This is a devastating book that reads as the polar opposite of Walt Whitman—here, the speaker does not see herself of them, these demented Americans. Here, the speaker rises up and says to the Bible and all its believers, to the box stores and all their consumers, to the patriots and all their patriotism, “Absolutely not.” The country inside these pages is lit up like a Walmart commercial and packed with the same ugliness that makes minimum wage unlivable and bargain shoppers unbearable. The loudest voices are all dressed up in stars-and-stripes bikinis, shouting about how great it is to be red-white-and-blue, while the rest of us rape and kill and need a drink to stand the sights. Here are poems that say, “Enough,” that say, “Quit insulting the world.” Watch out, America. Ally Malinenko’s poems are dodgeballs and she’s throwing them at your head.
—Dave Newman, author of The Poem Factory

How to Be an American is a how-to guide without instructions. This book is brave, bold, and honest—a fucking atom bomb to the political and personal poetry scenes.
—Ben John Smith, editor of Horror Sleaze and Trash

It ain’t pretty and it ain’t poesy, at least the way most Americans think of poesy, thank you, Jesus. And it ain’t political, except in the larger sense of human-ness, of flaming outrage, and of deeply longed for compassion. Simply put, this is Ally Malinenko’s incisive deconstruction of many a fetid cranny and nook of the collective American psyche. Pilgrim, save yourself: read it now.
—Don Wentworth, editor of Lilliput Review

Matcho’s Love Songs from Flood City (Low Ghost) is pretty good too, BTW.

Eat, drink, listen to poems, yak w/ the authors, buy the books—one of the last chances you’ll have to do any of this at ModernFormations!

 

9/12 A Writer Rodeo @ ModernFormations; 9/13 I Don’t Know What I Would Do If I Couldn’t Speak My Mind @ City of Asylum Pittsburgh

THIS WEEKEND…

11:00 AM-11:10 AM Aubrey Baker

11:10 AM- 11:20 AM Joshua Bellin

11:20 AM-11:30 AM Wendy Scott

11:30 AM-11:40 AM Judith Dorian

11:40 AM-11:50 AM Julie Cecchini

11:50 AM-12:00 PM Sarah Williams-Devereux

12:00 PM- 12:10 PM Angele Ellis

12:10 PM-12:20 PM Bonita Lee Penn

12:20 PM-12:30 PM Malcolm Friend

12:30 PM-12:40 PM Sheila Kelly

12:40 PM-12:50 PM Jay Carson

12:50 PM-1:00 PM Arlene Weiner

1:00 PM-1:10 PM Barbara Dahlberg

1:10 PM- 1:20 PM Michael Albright

1:20 PM- 1:30 PM Kris Collins

1:30 PM- 1:40 PM Ann Curran

1:40 PM-1:50 PM E.B. Bortz

1:50- 2:00 PM Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

2:00 PM- 2:10 PM Kath Donnelly

2:10 PM-2:20 PM Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Literary Artists

2:20 PM- 2:30 PM Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Literary Artists

2:30 PM- 2:40 PM Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Literary Artists

2:40 PM-2:50 PM Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Literary Artists

2:50 PM-3:00 PM Jessica Server

3:00 PM-3:10 PM Joanne Samreny

3:10 PM- 3:20 PM Dakota Garilli

3:20 PM-3:30 PM R.J. Gibson

3:30 PM-3:40 PM Kelly Andrews

3:40 PM-3:50 PM Don Wentworth

3:50 PM-4:00 PM Stephen Pusateri

4:00 PM-4:10 PM Jean Croyle

4:10 PM-4:20 PM Jen Ashburn

4:20 PM-4:30 PM Jason Irwin

4:30 PM-4:40 PM City of Asylum

4:40 PM-4:50 PM City of Asylum

4:50 PM-5:00 PM City of Asylum

4/23 Bukowski Night @ Brillobox

TOMORROW…

7/15 Free State Review Issue Four Launch feat. Karen Lillis & Scott Silsbe @ Hemingway’s

TOMORROW at 8PM, Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series presents…

The event is FREE as always, though I’d imagine the publication itself costs something nominal.

12/23 The Librarian/River Underneath the City Release Party @ Modern Formations

Next Monday, TWO books are being released at ONCE! This is the “Best of Culture” according to Pittsburgh Magazine, whatever that says about our culture:

Book-release parties are always a blast. The author is noticeably excited and flushed, having seen years of toil on a project come to fruition. That feeling is contagious, as audiences universally catch the bug and get in the spirit. Join John Grochalski, author of The Librarian, and Scott Silsbe, who penned the poetry collection The River Underneath the City, as they share excerpts from their newly published works. Taylor Grieshober and Jason Irwin also will be reading at this shindig.

[ModernFormations Gallery, 4919 Penn Ave., Garfield; modernformations.com]

& here’s the Bookface, with a festive flyer by the great Paulette Poullet: