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.

6/15 Hemingway’s Poetry Series: Padua, Simms, Ussia, Walicki

7 PM ET, Tuesday, June 15…

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 4 features Jose Padua, Michael Simms, Matthew Ussia, and Bob Walicki.

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 site through 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 6/15. Please email events@whitewhalebookstore.com if you miss this cut-off and need a ticket. For questions, check out our FAQ for events here.

*

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:

Jose Padua’s first full length book, A Short History of Monsters, was chosen by former poet laureate Billy Collins as the winner of the 2019 Miller Williams Poetry Prize and is now out from the University of Arkansas Press . His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in publications such as Bomb, Salon.com, Beloit Poetry Journal, Exquisite Corpse, Unbearables, Another Chicago Magazine, Crimes of the Beats, Up is Up, but So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992, and others. He has written features and reviews for Salon, The Weeklings, NYPress, Washington City Paper, the Brooklyn Rail, and the New York Times, and has read his work at Lollapalooza, CBGBs, the Knitting Factory, the Public Theater, the Living Theater, the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, and many other venues. He was a featured reader at the 2012 Split This Rock poetry festival and won the New Guard Review’s 2014 Knightville Poetry Prize.

Born and raised in Texas, Michael Simms has worked as a squire to a Hungarian fencing master, a stable hand, a gardener, a forager, an estate agent, a college teacher, an editor, a publisher, a technical writer, a lexicographer, a political organizer, and a literary impresario. He identifies as being on the spectrum and as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who didn’t speak until he was five years old. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently American Ash, as well as four chapbooks, three novels and a textbook about poetry, and he’s been the lead editor of over 100 published books. As the founding editor of Vox Populi and the founding editor emeritus of Autumn House Press and Coal Hill Review, he was recognized in 2011 by the Pennsylvania State Legislature for his contribution to the arts. Simms and his wife Eva live in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Mount Washington .

Matthew Ussia is a professor, editor, podcaster, thereminist, writer softcore punk, social media burnout and all-around sentient matter. He is a founding editor of the Beautiful Cadaver Project and co-edited their Social Justice Anthologies. His writings have appeared in Mister Rogers and Philosophy, Winedrunk Sidewalk, Future Humans in Fiction and Film, North of Oxford, and The Open Mic of the Air Podcast among others. He is co-editor of The Dreamers Anthology: Writing Inspired by the Lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank and Recasting Masculinity. His Theremonster alter ego performs doom metal on a theremin. Matt sang back up on the Silence LP The Countdown’s Begun. He lives in Pittsburgh . More info: www.matthewussia.com.

Robert Walicki’s work has appeared in over 50 journals, including Pittsburgh City Paper, Fourth River ,Chiron Review, and Red River Review. A Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert has published two chapbooks: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press), which was nominated to the 2016 List of Books for New York City ’s Poets House. His first full-length collection, Black Angels, is available from Pittsburgh’s Six Gallery Press.

12/10 After Happy Hour Review Reboot Reading @ Howlers

7PM TONIGHT…

Since there was no fall issue to launch in 2019, the AHH editors thought this would be a great chance to celebrate the journal’s history and put a face to some of the new names on the masthead.

In that spirit, yinz are all cordially invited to a reading Tuesday, December 10th.

Among the readers are current and former editors, past contributors, and local literary folk whose work matches the aesthetic we look for in the journal.

As always, the reading is free and open to the public (and, oh yes, there will be snacks). So come on out to Bloomfield’s friendly neighborhood dive to help us celebrate the journal’s evolution!

7/30 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series – Season Finale!

Don Wentworth sez,

I’ll be reading this coming Tuesday, July 30th, at 8 pm, at the Hemingway’s summer finale. The poets reading will try to put an exclamation point to what has been, arguably, the best season at Hem’s to date. My contribution will be 8 new haiku and 2 ghazals I have not read there before. Also a bonus free verse poem in which, seance-like, we will be attempting communication with Philip Larkin on the other side. Details below. Hope to see you there.

The 2019 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. May-July
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

Tuesday July 30 – The Grand Finale curated by Kristofer Collins. Jen Ashburn, Jason Baldinger, Deena November, Deesha Philyaw, Adriana Ramirez, Ellen McGrath Smith, Meghan Tutolo & Don Wentworth

Jen Ashburn is the author of The Light on the Wall (Main Street Rag, 2016) and has work published in numerous venues, including the podcast The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Her poem “Our Mother Drove Barefoot” was selected for the 2018 Public Poetry Project by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book and distributed on posters across the state. 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. She’s currently working on her second full-length poetry collection, tentatively titled Our Own Thin Ways, and a memoir.

Jason Baldinger is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A recent Writer in Residence and Osage Arts Community, he has three recent books, This Useless Beauty (Alien Buddha Press) and the split books The Ugly Side of the Lake with John Dorsey (Night Ballet Press) as well as Little Fires Hiding with James Benger (Kung Fu Treachery Press). His work has been published widely in print journals and online. You can listen to him read his work on Bandcamp on lps by the band Theremonster and The Gotobeds.

Deena November is the author of Mean Mama (Main Street Rag, 2017) She has edited two anthologies, Nasty Women & Bad Hombres (Lascaux Editions, 2017) and I Just Hope It’s Lethal (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Her poetry has appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Women Write Resistance, Keyhole Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her chapbook Dick Wad was published by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2012. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Carlow University where she then taught in the English and Women’s Studies programs. Deena teaches Creative Writing, Literature and Communications at Robert Morris University. She curates the Staghorn Poetry Series. Deena enjoys strolling through the gardens of Phipps with her toddlers and baby.

Deesha Philyaw is a Pittsburgh-based writer. Her fiction and nonfiction writing on race, gender, sex and culture has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Brevity, The Cheat River Review, The Baltimore Review, dead housekeeping, Bitch, Apogee Journal, and other publications. She’s a Fellow at the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction and a native Floridian.

Adriana E. Ramírez is a Mexican-Colombian writer, critic, and performance poet based in Pittsburgh . She won the inaugural PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize in 2015 for her novella-length work of nonfiction, Dead Boys (Little A, 2016), and in 2016 she was named Critic at Large for the Los Angeles Times Book Section. Her essays and poems have also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica/PEN America, Literary Hub, Convolution, HEArt, Apogee, and on Nerve.com. Once a nationally ranked slam poet, she cofounded the Pittsburgh Poetry Collective and continues to perform on stages around the country. She and novelist Angie Cruz founded Aster(ix) Journal, a literary journal giving voice to the censored and the marginalized. Her debut full-length work of nonfiction, The Violence, is forthcoming from Scribner.

Ellen McGrath Smith teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Carlow University Madwomen in the Attic program. Her writing has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, Quiddity, Cimarron , and other journals, and in several anthologies, including Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. Smith has been the recipient of an Orlando Prize, an Academy of American Poets award, a Rainmaker Award from Zone 3 magazine, and a 2007 Individual Artist grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her second chapbook, Scatter, Feed, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in the fall of 2014, and her book, Nobody’s Jackknife, was published in 2015 by the West End Press.

Meghan Tutolo is an artist and copywriter from Pittsburgh , PA. When she isn’t writing romance for olives and pasta or grading essays, she can be found cruising around on her pipsqueak motorcycle or holed up at home with her smoothy faced cats—writing and making things. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Weave, Main Street Rag, Nerve Cowboy and Free State Review—among others. Her first chapbook, Little As Living, was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2014.

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.

Listen in @ www.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com (our audio archive)

Follow us: https://www.facebook.com/Hemingwayssummerpoetryseries/

6/26 The Bridge Series @ Ace Hotel + POP Presents @ Black Cat Market

7 PM WEDNESDAY

For our June installment of The Bridge Series our guest organization will be Bethlehem Haven and our readers will include Jen Ashburn, Jill Khoury and Toi Derricotte.

$5 suggested donation

thanks to our board members Joan Bauer and Jenny Ashburn for putting this event together.

Bio details below:

Jen Ashburn is the author of The Light on the Wall (Main Street Rag, 2016) and has work published in numerous venues, including The MacGufffin, Whiskey Island and The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Her poem “Our Mother Drove Barefoot” was selected for the 2018 Public Poetry Project by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book and distributed on posters across the state. She holds an MFA from Chatham University, and lives in Pittsburgh.

Jill Khoury writes on gender, disability, and embodied identity. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal that features poetry and art of the body. She has written two chapbooks—Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House, 2009) and Chance Operations (Paper Nautilus, 2016). Her debut full-length collection, Suites for the Modern Dancer, was released in 2016 from Sundress Publications. Find her at jillkhoury.com.

Toi Derricotte is the author of five previous collections of poetry, most recently, The Undertaker’s Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), described by Natasha Trethewey as “a courageous act of healing and redemption.” An earlier collection of poems, Tender, won the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize; and her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton), received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other honors. With Cornelius Eady, she co-founded Cave Canem Foundation, the nation’s premier “home for Black poetry.” Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, she serves on the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors. Her sixth collection, ‘I’: New and Selected Poems, is forthcoming from University of Pittsburgh Press in 2019.

ABOUT OUR GUEST ORGANIZATION:
Bethlehem Haven provides shelter and supportive services to thousands of homeless women. A continuum of care consists of a range of housing and supportive services designed to enable each woman to identify her needs, develop a plan of action, and achieve a successful outcome.
Bethlehem Haven believes that a secure home is an essential foundation for women to achieve stable mental and physical health, as well as personal empowerment. Every woman who lives at Bethlehem Haven is linked to supportive services, specially designed for their individual needs. Bethlehem Haven helps clients identify an action plan to achieve self-sufficiency and permanent housing.
Housing Programs and Supportive Services
EMERGENCY SHELTER provides temporary housing for homeless women.
SAFE AT HOME offers monetary and basic assistance to women who are homeless, or at immediate risk of homelessness, for the first time in their lives. Priority is given to women over 50 years old.
HAVEN HOMES provides supportive permanent housing for women who are mentally ill.
RAPID RE-HOUSING provides housing identification, move in assistance, short-term rental assistance that is gradually reduced as the tenant assumes a larger share of the payment, case management and aftercare support.
MEDICAL RESPITE CARE is acute and post-acute medical care for patients experiencing homelessness or patients who are unstably housed who are too ill or frail from a physical illness or injury while living in a shelter or on the street, but are not sic enough to be in a hospital.
MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS CLINIC provides medical, mental health, podiatry, and dental care for homeless women and men without health insurance
UPTOWN LEGAL CLINIC provides free legal counseling for civil cases in such areas as family law, landlord-tenant, public benefits, consumer protection, wills, power of attorney and bankruptcy.
For the last 36 years, Bethlehem Haven has provided nearly 13,000 nights of shelter, every night, and the need continues to grow. Each year, the Haven provides nearly 60,000 meals; sees around 600 men and women in the health and wellness clinic; fills countless physical and emotional needs for our residents and day program attendees; and provides employment training for more than 100 men and women in the community.

ALSO 7 PM WEDNESDAY

Join Pretty Owl Poetry at The Black Cat Market for a night of poetry + fiction + cats! Wheeler Light will be promoting their book Hometown Onomastics! Local readers Laura Brun, Malcolm Friend, and Taylor Grieshober will be reading things, too!

Laura Brun is a poet from small-town Kentucky who lives and writes in Pittsburgh. She currently works at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and reads submissions for IDK Magazine. Her work is most recently forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue and the Pittsburgh Poetry Review. You can find more of her work at lauranbrun.blogspot.com and can follow her on insta @laurarrrrun

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 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 Books, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Together with JR Mahung, he is a member of Black Plantains, an Afrocarribean poetry collective.

Taylor Grieshober earned her MFA in Fiction from Oregon State University in 2018. She has recently been shortlisted for the Master’s Review Emerging Writer’s Prize, guest judged by Aimee Bender and her work has appeared in Hobart and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, among others. Her debut story collection, “Off Days,” is forthcoming from Low Ghost Press on June 8th.

Wheeler Light lives in Washington, DC. He received his BA in creative writing from Naropa University in Boulder, CO, where he co-founded What Are Birds? Journal. He is the 2018 Denver Mercury Cafe Poetry Slam champion and a recipient of the IthacaLit Difficult Fruit Poetry Prize. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in December Magazine, Gravel Mag, Hobart, and New Delta Review, among others. He is the author of Blue Means Snow (Bottlecap Press 2018) and Hometown Onomastics (Pitymilk Press 2019).

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.

6/4 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series – Week 5

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 4 – Michele Battiste, Kristofer Collins, Leslie Anne Mcilroy, Emily Mohn-Slate & Bob Walicki

Michele Battiste is the author of three poetry collections, including Waiting for the Wreck to Burn, which received the 2018 Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press and will be published in Spring, 2019. Her other books are Uprising (2014) and Ink for an Odd Cartography (2009), both from Black Lawrence Press. She is also the author of several chapbooks, including Left: Letters to Strangers (Grey Book Press). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, Memorious, and Mid-American Review, among others. Michele has taught poetry workshops for Wichita State University , the Prison Arts Program in Hutchinson , KS , Gotham Writers’ Workshops, and the national writing program Teen Ink. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, she has received grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, AWP, the Center for the American West, the Jerome Foundation, and the NY State Senate. She lives in Colorado where she raises money to save the planet.

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. His latest poetry collection, Salsa Night at Hilo Town Tavern, was published by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2017. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their son Cassidy.

Leslie Anne Mcilroy won the 1997 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Prize for Gravel, the 2001 Word Press Poetry Prize for Rare Space and the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards. Her second book, Liquid Like This, was published by Word Press in 2008 and Slag by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2014. Leslie’s poems appear in Grist, Jubilat, The Mississippi Review, PANK, Poetry Magazine, the New Ohio Review, The Chiron Review and more. Leslie works as a copywriter in Pittsburgh where she lives with her son Silas.

Emily Mohn-Slate is the author of FEED, co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize, forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press (2019). Her poems and essays can be found in New Ohio Review, At Length, The Adroit Journal, Indiana Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her manuscript, THE FALLS, was a finalist for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize offered by Kent State University Press, and the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize offered by University of Pittsburgh Press.

Robert Walicki’s work has appeared in over 40 publications including Fourth River , Stone Highway Review, Red River Review, and others. A Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert currently has two chapbooks published: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press), which was nominated to the 2016 Poet’s House List of Books in NYC. His first full length collection, Black Angels, is out now from Six Gallery Press.

5/14 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series – Week 2

8PM TUESDAY…

The 2019 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. May-July
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: ww.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com

Tuesday, May 14 – Pittsburgh Poetry Society
Introduction by Christine Aikens Wolfe
Sally (Sarah) Davis, Nancy Esther James, Christine Pasinski,
Fred Peterson, Christine Aikens Wolfe & Judy Yogman
with guest poet Monica Prince

Sally (Sara) Davis’s chapbook, Spent, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her work has been anthologized in Lavandaria, A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Words, published by City Works Press, Voices from the Attic, Riverspeak, Threads, Broad River Review, Evening Street Review, and in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is forthcoming in Blueline Magazine.

Nancy Esther James has had her poems published in various journals and literary magazines including Christianity and Literature, Time of Singing, and Poet Lore, as well as in publications such as Friends Journal and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her poem, “To a Friend,” originally published in Christianity and Literature, was reprinted in the 2003 Poet’s Market. Her collection of poems, No Time to Hurry, was published by Dawn Valley Press (Westminster College) in 1979. She has taught poetry workshops at the St. Davids Christian Writers Conference and The Writing Academy Seminar and has judged poetry contests for St. Davids and for the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her chapbook, Resilient Spirit: Poems for Lorraine, was published in March 2013 by Finishing Line Press.

A career educator, Christine Pasinski taught secondary English in the West Mifflin Area School District for over 36 years. Following her career in public education, she supervised student teachers for Penn State University. A lifelong devotee of poetry, she took her high school and her university students to the International Poetry Forum, where she served on the Advisory Council for 36 years. Currently, she enjoys membership in the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals, and she has read them at various venues in the city. In 2011 she published a book of her poetry, Rustlings of Regret.

Fred Peterson grew up on rice farms throughout Southeast Arkansas in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the son of a sharecropper and the seventh of eight children. His poetry takes one on a journey with a family rich in love. A teacher early in his career, his life-path took him from Arkansas to St. Louis and to Pittsburgh with his life-partner where they have lived for 30 years. He is past president of Pittsburgh Poetry Society. His book of poetry, Writing by Flashlight, was published by Awesome Books in 2012.

Monica Prince received her M.F.A. in poetry from Georgia College & State University and her B.A. from Knox College, and is currently an assistant professor of activist and performance writing at Susquehanna University. Her debut collection of poetry, Instructions for Temporary Survival, launches in July 2019 with Red Mountain Press. Her choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman, premiered to sold-out audiences at Susquehanna, and will be published in 2020 by [PANK]. In addition to teaching at Susquehanna, Prince is the managing editor for the Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly and a 2018-2019 fellow with the 5th Woman Poetry Collective in Tennessee.

Christine Aikens Wolfe is a reading specialist with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Christine has published poems in Sonnetto Poesia, a bi-lingual quarterly out of Ottawa since fall 2006. Her poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in the publications of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, including Parachute, the WPWP Bulletin, Riverspeak, and Threads, and in the Pittsburgh Poetry Society’s bi-annual magazine, The Potter’s Wheel. Her poetry has also been published in Woman Becoming and Poetry Magazine, and the multi-media book, Fission and Form. She is the co-editor of The Poetic Classroom (Autumn House Press) and currently serves as president of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her full-length book of poetry, Garland Green, was published by Dos Madres Press in 2018.

Judy Yogman is a retired ESL teacher. She enjoys trying new poetic forms, misses Anita Byerly’s little workshop and recently became a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Though lazy about submitting poems, she has submitted work that has appeared in the Post-Gazette and in various anthologies, including Out of the Rough: Women’s Poems of Survival and Celebration, Along These Rivers, and Written on Water: Writings about the Allegheny River. She is married, with three sons, three granddaughters and a new grandson.

5/7 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series – Week 1

8PM TUESDAY…

The 2019 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. May-July
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

Tuesday, May 7 – Madwomen in the Attic: Introduction by Jan Beatty.
Valerie Bacharach, Doralee Brooks, Daniela Buccilli, Kara Knickerbocker, Jamilla Rice, Bernadette Ulsamer & Sarah Williams-Devereux

Valerie Bacharach’s poetry has appeared in several publications including Pittsburgh Quarterly, US 1 Worksheets, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, and Voices from the Attic. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic workshops and conducts weekly poetry workshops at CeCe’s Place, a halfway house for women in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Her first chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag.

Doralee Brooks, a Writing Project Fellow (1995), teaches at the Community College of Allegheny County where she chairs the developmental studies department. Her poems have appeared in Uppagus, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Voices from the Attic, and The Paterson Review. Her chapbook, When Damballah Laughs, was a finalist for the 2016 Coal Hill Review Chapbook Prize. In 2017, her poem, “Trending This Fall,” was published in the anthology Nasty Women and Bad Hombres edited by Deena November and Nina Padolf. She writes with the Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshop.

Daniela Buccilli’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in publications that include Paterson Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Cider Press Review, US 1 Worksheets, and an anthology. She is completing her second MFA, this time in poetry. She has taught at public high schools for 25 years. Her poetry chapbook How Much It Takes To Carry will be published in 2019 by Main Street Rag. She is also working as an editor for Show Us Your Papers: A Poetry Anthology.

Kara Knickerbocker is a writer and world traveler from Saegertown, Pennsylvania and the author of the chapbooks The Shedding Before the Swell and Next to Everything that is Breakable. She is currently earning her MFA at Carlow University/Trinity College Dublin. Her most recent poetry and essays appeared in or are forthcoming from: Longridge Review, Moledro Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, One Sentence Poems, Uppagus, and the anthology Voices from the Attic, Vol. XXII, among others. Knickerbocker lives in Pittsburgh, where she works at Carnegie Mellon University, writes with the Madwomen in the Attic, and co-curates the MadFridays Reading Series.

Jamilla Rice dreams of when she can own her days and write. Until then, she squeezes out the time between being an athlete, educator, speaker, aunt, gardener, book nerd, baker, and British detective drama junkie. She’s been published in Voices from the Attic, among other anthologies and periodicals. You may have heard her read at Penguin Bookshop, White Whale Books, Delanie’s Coffee House, on WESA’s Prosody, or that random open mic in Toronto.

Bernadette Ulsamer earned an MFA from Carlow University where she is a member of Madwomen in the Attic. She is the author of the chapbook “Trestling” published by Flutter Press. Her poetry has appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper, The Main Street Rag, Cossack Literary Journal, Roar Magazine, The Broken Plate, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, and has been anthologized in Voices from the Attic, and Along These Rivers.

Sarah Williams-Devereux is a poet and teacher of writing. Her poetry has appeared in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Sampsonia Way Magazine, Pittsburgh City Paper; the anthologies Pittsburgh Love Stories and Nasty Women & Bad Hombres; and WESA-FM’s Prosody. She leads poetry workshops for the Madwomen in the Attic. She is certified in writing group leadership from Amherst Writers & Artists and volunteers for the Transformative Language Arts Network. She is pursuing her MA in teaching writing from Johns Hopkins University.

12/6 Bill of Rights Day reading/ACLU benefit @ White Whale

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.

 

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…