8/3 Poetry Reading: Silsbe, Wielkopolan, Tutolo, Kuzmish, & Pajich @ White Whale + Kevin Finn @ Night Market

7 PM SATURDAY

To kick off our poetry events during the month of August, White Whale’s delighted to welcome back local poets Scott Silsbe, Stefanie Wielkopolan, Meghan Tutolo, Bob Pajich, and Luke Kuzmish, for a reading in the store! All four writers will be selling their books and chapbooks during the reading as well.

LUKE KUZMISH is a new father, recovering addict, and software developer. He has released 4 collections of poems, the latest entitled Hurry Up Wagon, published by Poets’ Hall Press.

SCOTT SILSBE was born in Detroit. He now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems have been collected in three books—Unattended Fire, The River Underneath the City, and Muskrat Friday Dinner. He is also an assistant editor at Low Ghost Press.

MEGHAN TUTOLO’S poems have appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Rattle, Chiron Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and paper placemats and old receipts all over Western PA and beyond. Her first chapbook, Little as Living, was published in September 2014.

BOB PAJICH is a writer living in Forest Hills. His poetry collection,The Trolleyman, is available from Pittsburgh’s Low Ghost Press.

STEFANIE WIELKOPOLAN is a poet from North Carolina that prefers to call the past home. Up until the age of eight, she spent every Saturday watching cartoons at a bowling alley bar. She credits this experience for her love of a good dive bar, people watching, and writing poetry. In 2008, she received her M.F.A. in Poetry from Chatham University. Her poems have appeared in New Yinzer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Uppagus, Nerve Cowboy, and the anthology Unconditional Surrender: An Anthology of Love Poems from Low Ghost Press, among others. Her first collection of poetry, Border Theory, was published by Black Coffee Press in 2011.

ALSO Zachary Lee, Amy Melissen, & Sea of Dust author Kevin Finn will play some tunes in Market Square. Kevin goes on at 5:30.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership presents the Saturday Night Market: join us every Saturday from May 18 through October 26 for a night of art, jewelry, photography, games, food, music, and more!

As part of our Downtown Sound Initiative, we’ll be presenting a weekly free, live music series at the Night Markets in collaboration with community partners presenting diverse styles of local music on the Pittsburgh City Paper Stage.

🎵 Music partners include WYEP-FM, Women Who Rock, The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls, Deutschtown Music Festival, Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania, YMCA Lighthouse Project, Weather Permitting, BOOM Concepts, Liveburghstudio, and more!

Visit DowntownPittsburgh.com to see a weekly entertainment lineup, vendor listing, and more.

In addition to weekly Night Markets on Saturdays, join us for special Friday nights during the Three Rivers Arts Festival, Picklesburgh 2019, and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Gallery Crawls.

Media support for the Night Market + Concert Series is provided by 91.3 WYEP.

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/

5/2 Rewind Reading Series @ Brillobox

8PM THURSDAY…

The REWIND Reading Series is back at it again.

WHAT IS REWIND?
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 nostalgia. In other words, it takes guts, yo.

Brave presenters this round:

Kris Collins
Deena November
Janette Schafer
Sarah Shotland
Meghan Tutolo (host)

Do you have an idea for REWIND? Message Meghan Tutolo a brief bit about what you want to share and why you want to share it.

Don’t forget to join the REWIND Reading Series group for news on events and calls for readers. ✨

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.

11/29 Rewind Reading Series @ Brillobox

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29…

We baaaaackkkk!

The REWIND Reading Series is picking up where we left off—somewhere between immobilizing insecurity, high school melodrama… and reclaiming that shit. Finally.

WHAT IS REWIND?
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 nostalgia. In other words, it takes guts, yo.

The brave readers this round:

Michelle Boring
Lou Ickes
Anna Kurtz
Shannon Sankey
Scott Silsbe
Meghan Tutolo (host)

Do you have an idea for REWIND? Message Meghan Tutolo a brief bit about what you want to share and why you want to share it.

Don’t forget to join the REWIND Reading Series group for news on events and calls for readers. ✨

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!

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)

4/6 Poetry Reading: James, Silsbe, Tutolo, & Wentworth @ White Whale

7PM FRIDAY…

Free. BYOB. Three local poets welcome Mike James back into town for a night of poems at White Whale. Readers bios:

Mike James has been published in more than 100 magazines throughout the country. His work has appeared in such places as Negative Capability, Birmingham Poetry Review, Soundings East, and Chiron Review. He is the author of eleven poetry collections. His most recent books include: Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog), My Favorite Houseguest (FutureCycle), and Peddler’s Blues (Main Street Rag.) He has served as an associate editor for the Kentucky Review and Autumn House Press, as well as the publisher of the now defunct Yellow Pepper Press. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for the Paterson Prize. He makes his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. More information can be found on his website at mike.jamespoetry.com.

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit. He now lives in Pittsburgh. Silsbe is an editor at Low Ghost Press and has written three books of poetry—’Unattended Fire,’ ‘The River Underneath the City,’ and last year’s ‘Muskrat Friday Dinner.’ His next book, ‘Mount Trashmore,’ is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press.

Meghan Tutolo is an artist with some writing degrees and two smooshy-faced cats. She romances olives and Italian food for a living and teaches composition at a local college. When she isn’t writing or grading, Meghan can be found painting, doodling, watching ‘Forensic Files,’ drinking too much coffee, playing her guitar or stalking cats on Instagram—sometimes all of these in the same night.

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.

Don says,

I will be reading new ghazals from the manuscript currently at the publisher. Who knows, a new haiku or two might pop up, too.

& I’d add that the publisher in question is none other than good ol’ Low Ghost Press. Stay tuned.

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

10/25 The Bridge Series w/ Matcho, Brea, & Young @ Brillobox

8PM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25…

The Bridge Series unites the Pittsburgh literary and activist communities to raise awareness and funds for local organizations fighting the good fight in these troubling times.

The series convenes the last Wednesday of each month at The Brillobox. Each installment will feature Pittsburgh’s finest writers and a special guest organization (with proceeds from the evening going directly to that organization).

$5 cover.

Tonight will feature readings from:

Adam Matcho was formerly employed as a gas station attendant, sandwich artist, novelty shop clerk, gold buyer, and obituary writer. Now, he tells people he is the poet laureate of Johnstown. His poems have been published in literary magazines and his books include: “The Novelty Essays” (WPA Press), “Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer” (Liquid Paper Press) and “Love Songs From Flood City” (Low Ghost Press).

Stephanie Brea is a writer, teacher, and event organizer. She has 10+ years of experience facilitating creative writing workshops for local schools and non-profit organizations including Pittsburgh Public Schools, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Literary Arts Boom, The Warhol, Winchester Thurston, and Penn Trafford High School. Like most writers, she could list a bunch of places her work has been published, but who really reads those lists anyway? She is the co-founder of Pizza Poems PGH, which delivers hot, fresh poetry via pizza boxes for National Poetry Month in April.

Damon Young is the editor-in-chief of VSB. He is also a columnist for GQ.com And he’s working on a book of essays to be published by Ecco (HarperCollins). Damon is busy. He lives in Pittsburgh, and he really likes pancakes. Reach him at damon@verysmartbrothas.com. Or don’t. Whatever.

Our guest organization for the evening is Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania.

The mission of Planned Parenthood of Western PA (PPWP) is to provide comprehensive and complementary health care to those in need of services; disseminate information about human sexuality and the need for family planning and responsible parenthood; and advocate public policies which guarantee these rights and ensure access to such services. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-western-pennsylvania

& here’s a Littsburgh interview w/ Meghan Tutolo, who put this one together.