6/22 Read Local/Eat Local @ Peters Township Public Library

The Peters Township Public Library will host 25 local authors at its 2nd annual Read Local/Eat Local event on Saturday, June 22 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The library is encouraging the community to read books by Pennsylvania authors that represent all genres for all age groups. No registration required to attend.

Authors at the event will include:
• Audrey Abbott, Author
• Elizabeth Babcock
• Chuck Beard
• Brian Butko
• Michael Buzzelli
• Jamie Beth Cohen, Writer
• Carrie DiRisio
• Angele Ellis
• David Finoli
• Ellen Goodlett Author
• Melanie Linn Gutowski
• Ben Gwin
• Peter Hayes
• Tom Imerito
• Lori Jakiela
• Quelcy Kogel
• J Judson Lacko
• Joe Moore
• Jacqui Phillips
• Leah Pileggi
• Chad and George Shannon The Best Seven Years of My Life
• The Tuesday Table Ladies from Longwood at Oakmont
• Bob Walicki

No registration is required to attend the rest of the Read Local/Eat Local event. Plan to Eat Local while at this free event or passing through the area. Three food trucks, Burgh Bites, Southside BBQ Company, and Udderly Fresh, will be in the library parking lot with refreshments for sale that afternoon.

For more information about Read Local/Eat Local, call the library at 724.941.9430 ext. 5771.

Kicking off the event at 10:00 a.m. will be a talk by New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict followed by a book signing.
THIS PROGRAM IS FILLED. You do have the option to arrive at 10:45 a.m. to line up for a book signing ONLY after the 10 a.m. talk.
Independent bookstore Riverstone on the Road with Marie Benedict will be handling books sales for Marie Benedict that day. They suggest you preorder your book/s before Read Local/Eat Local, by calling Riverstone Books at 412.366.1001.

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus in History and Art History, and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. While practicing as a lawyer, Marie dreamed of a fantastical job unearthing the hidden historical stories of women — and finally found it when she tried her hand at writing. She embarked on a new, narratively connected series of historical novels with “The Other Einstein”, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein’s first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. The following novel in this series is “Carnegie’s Maid”, which tells the story of one brilliant woman who many have spurred Andrew Carnegie’s transformation from ruthless industrialist into the world’s first true philanthropist. Marie’s 3rd installment in the series, “The Only Woman in the Room”, was published in January of 2019. A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of Hedy Lamarr, glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication, “The Only Woman in the Room” is a masterpiece. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels “The Chrysalis”, “The Map Thief”, and “Brigid of Kildare”. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

3/3 Karen’s Book Row @ Spirit; Allen, Clevenger, Dorsey, Jakiela, & Powers @ White Whale

Busy day! Karen Lillis sez

Karen’s Book Row will be at the Pittsburgh Flea this Sunday, March 3!
11am to 4pm
SPIRIT LOUNGE
Lawrenceville
242 51st Street off Butler St
FREE admission
Downstairs: Buffet brunch & bar
Upstairs: Flea market including records, vintage clothes, and local handmade items (jewelry, art, specialty foods)
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/769539150086973/

Stop by for your snowstorm reads, collectibles, and literary must-haves!

Re: this 4PM White Whale reading Jason Baldinger, who will host it, sez

John Dorsey and Nikki Allen are back in town and Missouri poets Jeanette Powers and Victor Clevenger will be joining them and that seemed like a good enough reason have a reading! Rounding out the bill will be Lori Jakiela. This is an early show and we will be passing the hat for gas money for out of towners.

Nikki Allen is a lover & a writer—with hair an animal & heart clumsy tiger. Scribbling because she must with nearly 20 years of stages in her gut. She has read in cities across the US at music festivals, war protests, backyards and art openings. Her work has appeared in Nailed, Crash, The New Yinzer, out of nothing, Profane Journal(Pushcart Prize nominee ‘14/’15) and Encyclopedia Destructica among others. Allen has also contributed vocals to tracks by recording artists Poogie Bell (Question Song) and Jack Wilson (NYC). She believes in revolution, strong coffee, the hard knocks & the sweetness.

When not traveling the highways across America, Victor Clevenger spends his days in a Madhouse and his nights writing poetry. He lives with his second ex-wife, and together they raise six children in a small town northeast of Kansas City, MO. Selected pieces of his work have appeared in print magazines and journals around the world, as well as at a variety of places online. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, as well as the Pushcart Prize. Victor’s most recent published collections of poetry include a split book with Tom Farris titled Ginger Roots Are Best Taken Orally (EMP, 2018), A Finger in the Hornets’ Nest (Red Flag Poetry, 2018), and On The Tip Of Our Tongues (Analog Submission Press, 2018). He can be reached at: facebook.com/thepoetvictorclevenger

John Dorsey has been writing poetry since the late 1980’s and has been involved in the publishing community for more than two decades. He is the author of around 50 books and chapbooks, a few of the most recent being Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Press, 2017), the latter was funded by Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s English Department. An 11-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared more than 2,000 magazines and anthologies from around the world. He has read or spoken at colleges and universities such as the University of Toledo, Assumption College, Cleveland State University, Seton Hill University, University of the Arts, Erie Community College, Southeast Missouri State University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, as well as other assorted venues covering 49 states. For several years Dorsey served as a judge for the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo’s Art in Tarta Project, which chose poems to be presented on city transit buses. In 2006, he won the Toledo City Paper’s annual poetry and fiction competition, and would go on to serve as a judge the following year, before being named the city’s Best Literary Artist in their 2014 reader poll. In 2010, he also served as a judge for Grievous Jones Press’ Grievous Prize issued in Cardiff, Wales, and in 2013 for the Standing Rock Cultural Arts Open Chapbook Competition in Kent, Ohio. From 2003-2012, he served as an Artist-in-Residence at the Collingwood Arts Center in Toledo, Ohio and In 2015, Dorsey was awarded a Visiting Artist Residency by the Osage Arts Community in Belle, MO, where he currently resides. In 2017 he received a two appointment to serve as Belle’s first city Poet Laureate from Mayor Steve Vogt and has gone on to found the city’s first literary publication the Gasconade Review, which he edits with Jason Ryberg. He is a graduate of the University of Arts’ Writing for Film and Television program, completing his education there in 2002, and 2017 he served as the subject for a poetry documentary by NYC filmmaker Carson Parish. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com

Jeanette Powers is a poet-artist working on the banks of the Gasconade River in the Northern Ozarks. They are a founding member of FountainVerse: KC small press poetry fest and Stubborn Mule Press, as well as having seven full-length books of poetry and some chapbooks too released over the last decade. Follow them at jeanettepowers.com or @novel_cliche

Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoir Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books), which received the 2016 Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, was a finalist for the Council of Literary Magazine and Small Presses Firecracker Award and the Housatonic Literary Award, and named one of 20 Not-to-Miss Books of Nonfiction of 2015 by The Huffington Post. Jakiela is the author of an essay collection, Portrait of the Artist as a Bingo Worker (Bottom Dog Press), as well as two other memoirs — Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette) and The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press). She is also the author of the poetry collection Spot the Terrorist (Turning Point) and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. Her latest poetry chapbook, Big Fish, was published by Stranded Oak Press in 2016. 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 directs the undergraduate writing program at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, where she is Professor of English and Creative/Professional Writing. She is a co-director of Chautauqua Institution’s Summer Writers Festival, teaches community writing workshops at a yoga studio in her hometown of Trafford, Pa., and curates the Saturday Poem feature at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is at work on her first novel.

12/13 5th Annual Bah Humbug! Writers Wrestle the Holiday Spirit @ Brillobox

8PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13…

Tastier than a fruitcake, easier to assemble than a Fisher-Price playhouse, for the FIFTH year in a row, we are bringing some of Pittsburgh’s finest writers together to entertain you with tales of their holiday work experiences. This year, our readers will also play Secret Santa with each other, because nothing says “I’m broke” more effectively than “I WROTE you this gift.”

$5 suggested donation, proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

Hosted by Jason Baldinger (who was once run over by a Black Friday crowd on a rampage for office supplies) and Stephanie Brea (who once lifted her skirt and flashed an entire roomful of folks during an especially spirited performance of “Jingle Bells”).

This year’s roster of writers includes

Bob Pajich
Vanessa Vesch
Deesha Philyaw
Bob Walicki
Bart Solarczyk
Adam Matcho
Lori Jakiela
Matt Ussia
Meghan Tutolo
Andrea Laurion
Melanie Dione
Nathan Kukulski
Aaliyah Thomas

and more (maybe) TBA.

9/20 Rewind Reading Series @ Brillobox

8PM THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20….

The debut of the REWIND Reading Series.

REWIND is what happens when people share their angsty adolescent selves on a stage to a room full of adults. These are real people sharing their real, unedited journals, poems, songs, etc. for laughter, tears and unabashed in their own nostalgia. In other words, it takes guts, yo.

The brave readers this round:

Kelly Andrews
Lori Jakiela
Andrea Laurion
Brian Nuckols
Bob Walicki
Meghan Tutolo (host)

Do you have an idea for REWIND? Message Meghan Tutolo, but either way, be sure to join the REWIND Reading Series group for news on events and calls for readers.

We’re hoping to make REWIND a seasonal thing, but it’s dependent on its turnout. SO TELL YOUR FRENZ!

7/31 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series Grand Finale w/ Gainey, Gegick, Grochalski, Jakiela, Malinenko & Silsbe

8PM TUESDAY…

Hemingway’s Cafe, 3911 Forbes Avenue, Oakland

Co-hosted and curated by Jimmy Cvetic and Joan E. Bauer  

Open mic following featured readings!

www.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com  Listen in!

Grand Finale w/ guest-host Scott Silsbe. Featuring Celeste Gainey, Rich Gegick, John Grochalski, Lori Jakiela, Ally Malinenko & Scott Silsbe.

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

Richard Gegick is from Trafford, PA. He lives in Pittsburgh where he writes and waits tables for a living.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Pres, 2018) and the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.

Lori Jakiela is the author of four memoirs, including BELIEF IS ITS OWN KIND OF TRUTH, MAYBE, which received the William Saroyan Prize for International Writing from Stanford University and was named one of 20 Nonfiction Books Not to Miss in 2015 by The Huffington Post. Her most recent book is PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A BINGO WORKER, a collection of essays about work and the writing life, published in August by Bottom Dog Press. In 2016, she received the City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize, which sent her on a month-long residency to Brussels, Belgium. She is also the author of the poetry collection SPOT THE TERRORIST! and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. A native of Trafford, PA, Jakiela now runs community writing workshops in her hometown and lives with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their two children.

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collections The Wanting Bone, How to Be An American (Six Gallery Press), Better Luck Next Year (Low Ghost) and Fitting the Ocean in Your Mouth (Blue Hour) as well as the novel This Is Sarah (Bookfish Books). She lives in Brooklyn and tweets at @allymalinenko mostly about David Bowie and Doctor Who.

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems and prose have appeared in a number of fine periodicals including Kitchen Sink, Third Coast, The Chariton Review, Nerve Cowboy, Words Dance, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Six Gallery Press published his first full-length collection of poems Unattended Fire in 2012 and Low Ghost Press published The River Underneath the City in 2013.   His third collection, Muskrat Family Dinner, was published by White Gorilla Press in 2017.

5/26 The Scott Silsbe Variety Show @ Coffee Buddha

SATURDAY…

Readings by:
Kristofer Collins
Don Wentworth
Meghan Tutolo
Bart Solarczyk
Lori Jakiela
Bob Pajich

Music by:
Mark Mangini
Samoan Cats

Sat. May 26th, 8pm

$5 cover charge, BYOB

Coffee Buddha
964 Perry Hwy. (15237)

5/31 Hot Jewels by Chuck Kinder launch @ City of Asylum

8PM THURSDAY, MAY 31…

Join us for the book launch of Hot Jewels, Chuck Kinder’s second collection of poetry on Six Gallery Press, and a celebration of the author’s life and work. Chuck will be here via Skype, with other poets taking the Alphabet City stage for a series of live poetry readings.

Other Featured Writers:
Scott Silsbe
Michael Simms
Lori Jakiela
Sharon Fagan McDermott
Dave Newman
Micki Myers
Toi Derricotte

Chuck Kinder is the author of four novels—Snakehunter, The Silver Ghost, Honeymooners, and Last Mountain Dancer—and three collections of poetry—Imagination Motel, All That Yellow, and Hot Jewels.

Kinder was born and raised in West Virginia. He received a BA and MA in English from West Virginia University, where he wrote the first creative writing thesis in school history, which evolved into his first novel, Snakehunter. He later caught a Greyhound and headed west to join friends living in San Francisco.

In 1971 Kinder was awarded the Edith Mirrielees Writing Fellowship to Stanford University, followed by the Jones Lectureship in Fiction Writing. He has been a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Davis, and at the University of Alabama, and he is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and Yaddo’s Dorothy and Granville Hicks Fellowship.

At Stanford, Kinder became close friends with fellow students Raymond Carver, Scott Turow, and Larry McMurtry. His relationship with Carver inspired Honeymooners. His struggle to complete this book inspired the character Grady Tripp in Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys.

As a professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh for more than three decades, Kinder served as the director of the creative writing program and helped foster the careers of Michael Chabon, Earl H. McDaniel, Chuck Rosenthal, Gretchen Moran Laskas, and Keely Bowers.

He now lives in Key Largo, Florida, with Diane Cecily, his wife of over forty years.

Sharon Fagan McDermott is a poet, musician, and a teacher of literature at a private high school in Pittsburgh. She has published three chapbook collections, most recently, Bitter Acoustic, winner of the 2011 Jacar Press Chapbook competition. McDermott has been a recipient of both a Pittsburgh Foundation Award and a PA Council on the Arts grant. Her poems have been published in a wide range of journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Seneca Review, and the anthology Common Wealth: Poets on Pennsylvania. Her book Life Without Furniture (Jacar Press NC) is forthcoming in May 2018.

Lori Jakiela is the author of five books, most recently the memoir BELIEF IS ITS OWN KIND OF TRUTH, MAYBE (Atticus Books), which received the William Saroyan Prize for International Writing from Stanford University, and PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A BINGO WORKER (Bottom Dog Press), a collection of essays about work and the writing life. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and more. She received the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh Prize, a Golden Quill Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, fellowships to the Breadloaf and Bennington writers conferences, and more. She directs the undergraduate Creative and Professional Writing Program at Pitt-Greensburg, where she is a professor of English. She teaches community workshops at The Yoga Deck in her hometown, Trafford, PA, and founded and co-directs Veterans Write, a program that offers free writing workshops to veterans and those who love them. Her sixth book — HOW DO YOU LIKE IT NOW, GENTLEMEN? — is a poetry collection forthcoming from Low Ghost Press in 2019. She lives in Trafford, PA with her husband/author Dave Newman and their children. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net. Chuck Kinder taught her to box and be kind, not necessarily in that order. She is forever grateful to him.

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems and prose have appeared in a number of fine periodicals including Kitchen Sink, Third Coast, The Chariton Review, Nerve Cowboy, Words Dance, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Six Gallery Press published his first full-length collection of poems Unattended Fire in 2012 and Low Ghost Press published The River Underneath the City in 2013.

 

Michael Simms has been active in politics and poetry for over 40 years as a writer, teacher, editor, and community activist. He’s the founder and editor of Vox Populi, an online “gazette of the left” and he’s 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 in the historic Mount Washington neighborhood overlooking Pittsburgh.

Dave Newman is the author of six books, including Please Don’t Shoot Anyone Tonight (Broken River Books, forthcoming 2018), the novella Sammy Drinks Canned Beer (White Gorilla Press, forthcoming 2018), The Poem Factory (White Gorilla Press, 2015), the novels Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children (Writers Tribe Books, 2012) and Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), and the collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children. He works in medical research, serving elders.

Micki Myers is the author of two books of poetry, Trigger Finger, and It’s Probably Nothing…, and her work has appeared widely in print and online. She is the author of the blog Yuckylicious and is currently co-writing and editing a series of children’s books that incorporate virtual reality. Micki teaches English and lives in Squirrel Hill.

 

Toi Derricotte has published five books of poetry, the most recent of which is The Undertaker’s Daughter.  Her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, received the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was one of The New York Times Notable Books of the Year.  She is a recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and two Pushcart Prizes, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. With Cornelius Eady, she co-founded Cave Canem in 1996.  She has served on the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors.

FREE but you gotta RSVP!

Cover painting by Paulette Poullet coming soon. For now, here’s this.

4/15 Schubert on the Bluff, Year 3: Concert XIII: Winter Journey @ Mary Pappert School of Music

SUNDAY…

2:30 p.m. Pre-concert

David Allen Wehr plays Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque and L’isle joyeuse

3:00 p.m. Concert

A co-presentation with Pittsburgh Song Collaborative, Benjamin Binder, Artistic Director

Schubert was most famous during his lifetime for his over 600 songs, some of which were grouped into cycles. Perhaps the most important of these is the death-haunted “Winterreise”, a journey into winter’s darkness many music lovers consider Schubert’s finest achievement in song. Vocal expert Benjamin Binder is joined by acclaimed baritone Daniel Teadt. Winter is coming!

With its themes of alienation, exile, obsession, and lost love, Winterreise speaks to our current social and political moment in moving and startling ways. In addition to a complete, uninterrupted performance of the entire cycle, six Pittsburgh poets (Jen Ashburn, Sheila Carter-Jones, Lori Jakiela, Adriana E. Ramirez, Sheila Squillante, and Don Wentworth) will give readings of new work responding to the songs.

2/15 Low Ghost Press Love-In @ Brillobox

8PM THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15…

In these dark times we could all use a little more love.

Join Low Ghost Press as we celebrate the publication of ‘Unconditional Surrender: An Anthology of Love Poems’ featuring readings by Angele Ellis, Robert Walicki, Jen Ashburn, Don Wentworth, Stephanie Brea, Sheila Carter-Jones, Richard Gegick, Dave Newman, Lori Jakiela, Bob Pajich, Jason Baldinger, Meghan Tutolo, Bart Solarczyk, and Nancy Krygowski.

Poets will also be deejaying their favorite tunes.

Come dance to the poems & groove to the poetry of pop!!

This event is FREE.

We’ll be taking up a collection for Planned Parenthood of Western PA during the event.

12/17 Viva Arletty! & Arkansas Ghoulash launch @ White Whale + Bah Humbug 4 @ Brillobox

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17…

Two new books & two readings! The Ghost of Literature Present will pay a terrifying visit today!

6PM at White Whale in Bloomfield, welcome two writers from Arkansas to Pittsburgh (& welcome their books to your noodle by buying & reading them, too). Free readings & refreshments, possibly including actual goulash.

Scotty Lewis, a 2015 graduate of the Arkansas Writers MFA Program, is debuting his first book of poetry, Arkansas Ghoulash.

Here’s an interview w/ Scotty talking about the book, & here’s another one.

Mark Spitzer, novelist, poet, essayist and literary translator, grew up in Minneapolis where he earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1990. He then moved to the Rockies, where he earned his Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. After living on the road for some time, he found himself in Paris, as Writer in Residence for three years at the bohemian bookstore Shakespeare and Company, where he translated French criminals and misanthropes. In 1997 he moved to Louisiana, became Assistant Editor of the legendary lit journal Exquisite Corpse, and earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. He taught creative writing and lit for five years at Truman State University and is now an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas.

Alan Olifson is an award-winning humor columnist, public radio commentator, comedian and regular host of Pittsburgh’s monthly Moth StorySLAMs. He created the acclaimed storytelling series WordPlay in his hometown of Los Angeles which he now produces in Pittsburgh along with Bricolage Production Company as part of their regular season. He’s hosted storytelling events for conferences, schools and, believe it or not, bridal showers. His book, Manchild: My Life Without Adult Supervision, is now out on Six Gallery Press. Alan relocated to Pittsburgh with his wife and two children years ago but never tires of hearing people complain about “traffic.”

Angele Ellis is the author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery), Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors’ Choice Chapbook), Under the Kaufmann’s Clock: Fiction, Poems, and Photographs of Pittsburgh with photos by Rebecca Clever (Six Gallery), and co-author of the diversity workbook Dealing With Differences (Corwin). A 2008 recipient of an Individual Creative Artist fellowship in poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, she was a prizewinner in the 2007 RAWI Competition for Creative Prose and first runner-up in the 2012 Grey Sparrow Flash Fiction Contest. Angele’s reviews, poetry, and fiction have appeared in nearly sixty publications and fourteen anthologies. She is a contributing editor to Al Jadid Magazine.

John Thomas Menesini is the author of The Last Great Glass Meat Million (Six Gallery Press, 2003), e pit ap h (Convergence, 2007), endo: Poems & Sketches 2007 – 2011 (Six Gallery Press, 2011), and Gloom Hearts & Opioids (Six Gallery Press, 2015). His poems have appeared in numerous publications in Ireland, Scotland, England, and the US, thus garnering dozens of fans across the globe.

Rick Claypool grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania called Leechburg, but he currently lives in Pittsburgh. By day he works for Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization that fights corporate power. Leech Girl Lives (Spaceboy Books, 2017) is his first novel.

At 8PM, head over to Brillobox for Bah Humbug 4: Writers (Still) Wrestle the Holiday Spirit…

Tastier than a fruitcake, easier to assemble than a Fisher Price playhouse, for the FOURTH year in a row, we are bringing some of Pittsburgh’s finest writers together to entertain you with tales of their holiday work experiences.

$5 suggested donation, proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

The readers will channel their inner-Sedaris, and offer up tales from their time as food service employees, retail workers, and other assorted time-card punchers during the bleak months of November and December. They will attempt to locate their hoilday spirit. Or THE holiday spirits (aka, Jim, Jack and maybe even Johnny).

Just like signing the group birthday card or buying overpriced crap from your co-worker’s kid’s school fundraiser, UGLY HOLIDAY SWEATERS STRONGLY ENCOURAGED.

Hosted by Jason Baldinger (who was once run over by a Black Friday crowd on a rampage for office supplies), and Stephanie Brea (who probably stole that art book she gave you for Christmas in 2001).

The Lineup:

Becky Corrigan
Angele Ellis
Rich Gegick
Lori Jakiela
Andrea Laurion
Deesha Philyaw
Meghan Tutolo
Matt Ussia
Bob Walicki

11/11 Borczon, Jakiela, Matcho, Garrison, & Pajich @ Nine Stories

7PM TONIGHT, hosted by Scott Silsbe…

Another great reading at Nine Stories,
this one featuring
MATT BORCZON (in town from Erie, PA)
LORI JAKIELA
ADAM MATCHO
KURT GARRISON
& BOB PAJICH

Free, byob