9/8 Virtual Poetry Book Launch: “The River Is Another Kind of Prayer” by Kristofer Collins

7 PM Tuesday, Sept. 8, on your rectangle…

Please register for this event by snagging a ticket on Eventbrite! There are both free tickets and pay-what-you-can tickets available. Registration will end at 6:30pm EDT on 9/8.

Rescheduled from March: We’re super excited to be helping local poet Kristofer Collins launch his latest collection, The River Is Another Kind of Prayer: New & Selected Poems! He’ll be reading alongside Daniela Buccilli, Richard Gegick, and Jamilla Rice.

Check out our Bookshop site’s list titled “Recent and Upcoming Events (Pre-order!)” to order Kristofer’s book. And you can check out other curated lists and picks on our main Bookshop 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.) We’ve also got a number of books available ready-to-ship from our store in Pittsburgh.

About the authors:

Kristofer Collins is the publisher of Low Ghost Press and the books editor at Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-host of the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their son Cassidy.

Daniela Buccilli’s poetry chapbook is What it Takes to Carry (Main Street Rag). Her poems can be found in Coal River Review, Paterson Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Cider Press Review, and Italian Americana. She holds degrees in teaching and writing from Penn State, University of Pittsburgh, and Carlow University. She has co-edited an upcoming anthology Show Us Your Papers. She teaches high school.

Richard Gegick is from Trafford, PA. He is the author of the poetry collection, Greasy Handshakes, available from WPA Press. He lives in Pittsburgh where he writes and waits tables for a living.

Jamilla Rice dreams of when she can own her days and write. Until then, she squeezes out moments during her time as an athlete, educator, aunt, book nerd, baker, and British detective drama junkie. Her work has been published in previous volumes of Voices from the Attic and Pittsburgh Poetry Review, among other anthologies and periodicals. You may have heard her read at various events, on WESA’s Prosody, or at that one open mic in Toronto. Her work includes poetry, short fiction, flash nonfiction and combinations of all of the above and more. Topics generally explore the intersection of the personal and political; past as present and future; the beauty within the mundane and pain; the science, math, and absurdity of human behavior; and the undying insistence of marginalized peoples to thrive.

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

12/11 Bah Humbug: Writers (Still) Wrestle the Holiday Spirit @ Brillobox

8PM THIS SUNDAY…

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

*** Suggested $5 donation, with all proceeds going to the ACLU.

These folks will channel their inner-Sedaris, offering 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.

We are now in our THIRD year, which means we have lasted longer than those cheap discount outlet socks your mom puts in your Xmas stocking.

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

The Lineup:

Ben Gwin
Lori Jakiela
Meghan Tutolo
Bob Walicki
Andrea Laurion
Angele Ellis
Rich Gegick
Bob Pajich
Matt Ussia

7/26 Hemingway’s Poetry Series Grand Finale @ Hemingway’s

TODAY, via Joan Bauer…

The 2016 Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. May-July  

Hosted by Jimmy Cvetic.  3911 Forbes Avenue (in the back room)  Oakland 

Audio archive: www.hemingwayspoetryseries.blogspot.com

Tuesday July 26 – The Grand Finale curated by Kristofer Collins. 

Featuring Kristofer Collins,   Angele Ellis, Celeste Gainey, 

Richard Gegick, John Grochalski, John Korn, 

Jason Mendez & Don Wentworth

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. He also manages Caliban Book Shop in Oakland (and owns Desolation Row Records located inside). His latest poetry collection Local Conditions was published in 2015. He lives in Stanton Heights, a hidden gem in Pittsburgh’s east end with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their three cats.

Angele Ellis is an editor, poet, fiction writer, and reviewer who has authored three books, and appeared in over fifty publications and ten anthologies. She is coauthor of Dealing With Differences (Corwin Press), named as a top multicultural classroom resource by The Christian Science Monitor, and author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery Press), whose poems won her an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors’ Choice Chapbook). Angele feels that writing and performing her work combines two of her childhood dreams–to be an archaeologist and a lounge singer. She lives in Friendship, whose Quakerly spirit soothes her hot-blooded nature.

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, GlassCity, In The Year of Everything Dying, Starting with the Last Name Grochalski, and the novel, The Librarian [as well as, as of Saturday, the sequel Wine Clerk]. Grochalski lives in Brooklyn, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.

John Korn lives in Pittsburgh. He is the author of a book of poetry titled Television Farm which can be purchased on amazon.com. He has worked as a mental health social worker for many years now. He was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, one for his poem “14 young women” and another for his poem “Yellow lamp shade head.”  He didn’t win either of these prizes and he is not even sure what those prizes are.

Jason Mendez is an educator, author, interdisciplinary theater artist, and father of 3. He received his Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Curriculum, Culture, and Change and a Graduate Certificate in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His interests include urban education, critical race studies, cultural studies, arts as social justice, Boricua identities, and South Bronx culture and history. As a South Bronx Puerto Rican writer focusing on lived experience, notions of home, and the power of voice, his work critically reflects a common struggle with identity construction and the process of becoming. Currently, He is working on a memoir titled, The Search for the Golden Glow, which vividly details his coming of age as a Puerto Rican kid from the South Bronx. He is also working on adapting his manuscript into a one-man performance, called Manida.

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, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and Rolling Stone, as well as a number of anthologies. He is the author of Past All Traps and Yield to the Willow, with forthcoming volumes from Six Gallery and Low Ghost Press. [His latest collection, With a Deepening Presence, forthcame earlier this month!]

That’s all, folks!

4/23 Bukowski Night @ Brillobox

TOMORROW…

12/14 Bah Humbug! Writers Wrestle the Holiday Spirit @ Hambone’s

THIS SUNDAY at 8PM…

If you’ve ever worked retail, food service or a myriad of other jobs around the holidays then you know it can be a pretty dehumanizing experience. We wanted to give voice to that experience, so some fine Pittsburgh writers are going to attempt to wrap their heads around their own holdiay work experience. After the reading, Steve Pellegrino and his wife Mary Shea will sing some Christmas songs, and some other working class anomalies. If you wear a bad holiday sweater the event is free, if you don’t the event is still free, huzzah!

Featuring:
Jason Baldinger
Stephanie Brea
Rich Gegick
SJ Guzik
Ben Gwin
Lori Jakiela
TC Jones
Andrea Laurion
Adam Matcho
Scott Silsbe

Music by:
Steve Pellegrino and Mary Shea