May 28, 2013 (Norman, D'Haene, Gainey, Beatty)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

May 28, 2013

Liane Ellison Norman's recent book of poems, Breathing the West: Great Basin Poems, was published by Bottom Dog Press in the fall of 2012, a year in which a chapbook, Driving Near the Old Federal Arsenal, was released by Finishing Line Press. Norman has published individual poems in the North American Review, Kestrel, The Fourth River, 5 AM, Grasslimb, Rune, Hot Metal Press and in Voices From the Attic and Come Together: Imagine Peace anthologies. She won the Wisteria Prize for poetry in 2006 from Paper Journey Press and has published two earlier books of poetry, The Duration of Grief and Keep, a book about nonviolent protest against nuclear bomb parts makers, Mere Citizens: United, Civil and Disobedient, a biography, Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the Plowshares Eight, a novel, Stitches in Air: A Novel About Mozart's Mother, and many articles, essays and reviews.

Recording not available

Elise D’Haene is a novelist, screenwriter, and editor. Her first novel, Licking Our Wounds (Permanent Press), won the Small Press Book Award at Book Expo in Chicago. She won the Hemingway Award for her short story, “Married.” She has published several short stories and co-wrote a four book series of erotica, Red Shoe Diaries, for the Penguin Group. Among her screen credits, she was a writer for The Little Mermaid II (Disney) and penned several episodes of the Showtime series, Red Shoe Diaries. She teaches screenwriting at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, and holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern California.

Recording not available

Celeste Gainey’s full-length collection, the gaffer, chosen by Dorianne Laux as runner-up for the 2012 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, has been selected by Eloise Klein Healy for publication in early 2015 by Arktoi Books, her imprint at Red Hen Press. Gainey’s chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography, runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in their 2011 Summer Kitchen Series; it is due to be re-issued in their Re-Bound Series in 2013. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, BLOOM, 5AM, Adanna, Wild Apples, and Madroad: The Breadline Press West Coast Anthology. A gaffer in the film industry and an architectural lighting designer, she holds a BFA in film and television from New York University and an MFA in creative writing/poetry from Carlow University. A native Californian, she now resides in Pittsburgh.

Recording not available

Jan Beatty’s new book, The Switching/Yard was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2013.  Other books include Red Sugar (2008, U of Pgh Press) Boneshaker (2002, U. of Pgh. Press) and Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Ravenous, her limited edition chapbook, won the 1995 State Street Prize. Beatty’s poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and Court Green, and in anthologies published by Oxford University Press, University of Illinois Press, and University of Iowa Press. Awards include the $15,000 Creative Achievement Award in Literature from the Heinz Foundation, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For the past thirteen years, she has hosted and produced Prosody, a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. Beatty directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and teaches in the MFA program.

Recording not available

May 21, 2013 (Roffman, Weiner, Ruiz, O'Brien, Minnich, Edwards, Curran)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

May 21, 2013

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, facilitator of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, taught creative writing, myth and literature and started a Myth/Folklore Studies Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She co-edited the prize-winning anthology Life on the Line and is author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces and The Approximate Message. She has read her poems in Ireland, Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain and the Czech Republic and was a featured writer on the BBC's "Writer from Abroad" series. Her work has been published in Centennial Review, Riverrun, MacGuffin, Main Street Rag and the Pittsburgh Quarterly and she is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts at IUP. Over the years, she has been involved in 23 collaborations, often with artists and dancers. Her book of poetry, I Want to Thank My Eyes, was published by Tebot Bach in April 2012.

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Arlene Weiner has been a cardiology technician, a college instructor, an editor, and a research associate/member of a group developing educational software. A native of New York City, Arlene has lived in Pittsburgh for most of her adult life.  Arlene has had poems published in Pleiades, Poet Lore, The Louisville Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, anthologized in Along These Rivers, and read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac.  Poet Joy Katz wrote of Arlene’s collection of poems, Escape Velocity (Ragged Sky, 2006), “I want to keep my favorite of these beautifully alert, surprising poems with me as I grow old.”

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Miguel Ruiz is a native of Los Angeles who now lives in Pittsburgh with his soon-to-be wife, Lauren. Though he makes his living as a member of PNC's Strategic Initiatives Office, Miguel has written poetry since middle school. He strives to mesh both lyrical and objectivist sensibilities, while examining people, places, and thoughts. Miguel studied at Loyola Marymount University and Harvard Business School.

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Pam O'Brien began writing poetry at Allegheny College and was hooked once her strange response to The Beatles' “Strawberry Fields Forever” was published in the literary magazine. Her career has included grant writing, community organization, public relations and advertising, and teaching Spanish. She currently holds a lectureship in the English Department of the University of Pittsburgh where she serves as the Associate Director of Public and Professional Writing. She was a 2012 finalist for the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award and recipient of teaching excellence awards from the College of General Studies in 2008 and 2011. She has published three chapbooks, Kaleidoscopes, Paper Dancing and Acceptable Losses. Her full-length poetry book, The Answer to Each is the Same, will be released by Dos Madres Press in 2012.

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Randy Minnich is a retired chemist, now focusing on writing, environmental issues, t’ai chi, and grandchildren.  A member of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop and Pittsburgh Poetry Society, he has published two books, Wildness in a Small Place and Pavlov’s Cats.  His work has also appeared in Main Street Rag, Pearl, Pudding, Snowy Egret, Blueline, and other publications.

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Ziggy Edwards grew up in Pittsburgh and earned a BA in Fiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.  Her poems and short stories have appeared in publications including Confluence, Paper Street, Pittsburgh City Paper, Nexus, Main Street Rag, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Ship of Fools.  She has also been a guest on the radio program, Prosody.  Ziggy's first chapbook, Hope's White Shoes. was published in 2006.

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Ann Curran is author of the chapbook Placement Test. She is former long-time editor of Carnegie Mellon Magazine and staff writer for the Pittsburgh Catholic and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She holds degrees from Duquesne University. She taught at Duquesne and the Community College of Allegheny County. Her poetry has appeared in Rosebud Magazine, U.S. 1 Worksheets, The Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Blueline, Third Wednesday, Notre Dame Magazine, Ireland of the Welcomes, Commonweal Magazine and others, as well as the anthologies: Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh, Motif 2 Come What May and Motif 3 All the Livelong Day, Thatchwork, and Surrounded: Living With Islands.

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Open Mic

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May 14, 2013 (James, Lin, Noll, Pasinski, Peterson, Stevens, Wolfe)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

May 14, 2013

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 other 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, New Wilmington, PA) 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. 

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Jeen-Shang Lin currently teaches civil engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He wrote poems in his youthful days during college. Only in the past few years did he start writing again, an indisputable living proof that inhaling enough Pittsburgh air is a sufficient condition for becoming a poet. However, he only has a small repertoire; it could be that his professional writing is smothering the poetry in him, or more plausibly, he simply writes at the pace of a snail crawling.

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Marilyn Marsh Noll, earned her MFA in Creative Writing at American University in Washington, D.C. in 1994. Her poems have appeared in the Comstock Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Folio, Voices From the Attic and The Potter’s Wheel. Her chapbook, Thirteen Ways of Looking at Bones, won the Pennsylvania Poetry Society Chapbook Award in 2007. Her children’s book, Jonathan and the Flying Broomstick, was published in August 2010. A resident of O’Hara Township, she belongs to the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshop (Carlow University) and the Pittsburgh Poetry Society.

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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.

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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 where he has lived for the last 25 years.  He is a member and past president of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society.  His book of poetry, Writing by Flashlight, was published  by Awesome Books in 2012.

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Shirley Stevens is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society and the Squirrel Hill Poetry, and St. David’s workshops.  She serves as a mentor for the Writing Academy and a poetry workshop leader for Passavant Retirement Village and The First Word.   Her poems most recently appeared in The Potter’s Wheel, Honing the Poem, and A Time of Singing, as well as Poet Lore, Along These Rivers,  Fission of Form, The CommonWealth: Pennsylvania Poets on Pennsylvania Subjects, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Squirrel Hill Magazine.  She is the author of Pronouncing What We Want to Keep.

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Christine Aikens Wolfe writes poetry and fiction. 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.

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Open Mic

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May 7, 2013 (Barry, Comini, Link, Mennies, Pena, Scott, Wolf, Stoner)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

May 7, 2013

Tess Barry has an MA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently completing her MFA in Poetry at Carlow University. She was a finalist for North American Review’s 2012 James Hearst Poetry Prize and will be published in North American Review’s Spring 2013 edition. She was a semi-finalist for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards 2013.  Her work has most recently appeared in Carlow University Press's anthology, Voices from The Attic: Volume XVIII. 

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Kay Comini’s poetry has been published in Poet Lore, Pittsburgh City Paper, The Pittsburgh Quarterly and the anthologies, Dark Side of the Moon, Voices from the Parlor, Voices from the Attic Vols. XIII, XIV, and XV, XVI, XVII, and in the Sandburg-Livesay Anthology: No Choice But to Trust. Her chapbook, The Picking Room, placed second in the White Eagle Coffee Press contest. She is a retired welfare caseworker and an energy healer.

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Phyllis Link, a native of Johnstown, PA, has called Pittsburgh home for over 27 years now. She has enjoyed writing since an early age but only recently stumbled upon the world of poetry in Pittsburgh.  When not writing, she makes a living as a Customer Account Specialist for a manufacturing company.   Her joy comes from being a student of Carlow's Madwomen in the Attic program and a member of the Pittsburgh Writer's Studio.  Her first publication will appear in the upcoming Voices from the Attic volume XVIIII.

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Rachel Mennies is the author of the chapbook No Silence in the Fields (Blue Hour Press, 2012). Recent poems of hers have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Witness, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. She currently teaches in the first-year writing program at Carnegie Mellon University.

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Dorina Pena earned her bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh and she received her MFA in poetry from Carlow University. She has a chapbook published by Monkey Man Press called Leaving the Tree. She has also been published in multiple volumes of Carlow University’s Voices from the Attic. She currently resides in Shadyside with her husband and works as a full-time cook at the Market District.

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Wendy Scott’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Oakland Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pittsburgh City Paper, Affilia: A Journal of Women in Social Work and Voices from the Attic, among others. She has a BA from Carnegie Mellon where she studied with the poet Jim Daniels, and an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her full length book of poetry, Soon I Will Build an Arc is forthcoming from Main Street Rag.  She lives in Highland Park.  

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Laurin B. Wolf has an MFA from Kent State University and BA from the University of Pittsburgh in poetry writing.  Her poems have appeared in Scholars & Rogues, PMS, Pittsburgh’s City Paper, Two Review, and Madwomen in the Attic an Anthology.  Her book reviews have appeared in Whiskey Island. She is a guest host on the WESA’s weekly radio show Prosody featuring interviews with poets, she and co-hosts the monthly reading series Mad Fridays. She teaches writing at Duquesne University and Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA.

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Michelle Stoner’s debut poetry collection, Flats and Riots, was published in 2008 (WordTech).  Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in 5AM, Bloom, The Collared Peccary, and Weave Magazine, among others.  Stoner holds an MA in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Carlow University.  She is a sound engineer for Prosody, NPR-affiliate WESA’s weekly show featuring the work of national writers.

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Open Mic

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