Saturday, October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014 (US 1 Worksheets Contributors)

US 1 Worksheets Contributors
October 11, 2014

Note: This event was curated by Arlene Weiner and is not part of the Hemingway's Poetry Series. It features local poets whose work has appeared in US 1 Worksheets, a poetry and fiction magazine published by a Poets' Cooperative in Princeton, New Jersey.

David Adès moved to Pittsburgh from Australia in April 2011. He has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. His collection, Mapping the World, was commended for the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award 2008. He was a volunteer editor of the Australian Poetry Members Anthology, Metabolism. His poems have appeared widely in Australia and US publications.  Recent poems have been published or are forthcoming in Blast Furnace, Broad River Review, Cyclamens and Swords, Grey Sparrow Journal, Philadelphia Poets Journal, Uppagus, US 1 Worksheets, Voices Israel Anthology, among others.  In recent weeks, David was awarded the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize 2014, and was shortlisted for the New Castle Poetry Prize 2014.


Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Her poetry has appeared in journals including 5 AM, Cider Press Review, Italian Americana , Poet Lore, Quarterly West, US 1 Worksheets, and in more than a dozen anthologies, Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh and Voices from the Attic, among them. In 2007, her poem, "Sleepers," won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International.  Joan co-hosts and curates the Hemingway Summer Poetry Series with Jimmy Cvetic. Her second full-length book of poetry, Glass Blocks & Begonias, is forthcoming from Tebot Bach in 2015.

Ann Curran is author of the book of poems, Me First (Lummox Press, 2013) and 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, 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


Madelaine Dusseau moved to Pittsburgh from Michigan in the 1980s and has been writing poems since childhood, but had her first publication as an adult in US 1 Worksheets.  Along with environmental, food production, canine, volunteering and other interests, she continues to write and her most recent publication was a travel piece for Dogs Unleashed magazine.  Her most recent adventure has been into home ownership.


Michelle Maher is a poet and teacher who lives in Wexford, PA with her husband and youngest daughters.  She is a professor of English at La Roche College. Her poem "At the Brera, Milan" won the 2012 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award.  She is a participant in the Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshops and her poems have appeared in journals and periodicals, including US 1 Worksheets, The Georgetown Review, Voices from the Attic, The Chautauqua Literary JournalCity Paper, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


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, US 1 Worksheets, and other publications.


Richard St. John's first book of poems, The Pure Inconstancy of Grace, was published in 2005 by Truman State University Press, as first runner up for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.  Each Perfected Name, also from Truman State University Press, is scheduled for publication in early 2015.   His long poem, Shrine, was released as a chapbook in 2011. St.John received degrees in English from Princeton University and the University of Virginia.  In 2002, he completed a mid-career Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University. He lives in Pittsburgh where he coordinates small-group conversations that support relationships, shared meaning-making and renewal.


Mike Schneider began writing poetry in the early 1970s, when he opposed the Vietnam war and published an “underground newspaper” on an air force base in Ohio. He’s lived in Pittsburgh since the mid-70s, where he’s been a lawyer, teacher and writer with award-winning articles in Pittsburgh Magazine and in The New People published by the Thomas Merton Center of Pittsburgh.  His poetry reviews appear in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and City Paper. He received a 2003-04 Creative Artists Stipend in Arts Commentary from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in distinguished journals, including Chautauqua, Notre Dame Review, Hunger Mountain, New Ohio Review and Poetry. He has a chapbook, Rooster (2004), a runner-up for the Main Street Rag chapbook competition, and received the 2012 Editors Award in Poetry from The Florida Review.


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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Saturday, September 20, 2014

September 20, 2014 (Emanual, Katz & Smith)

Versify Poetry Series

September 20, 2014

Note: This event was curated by Robert Walicki and is not part of the Hemingway's Poetry Series. 

The event began with an introduction from Robert Walicki.


Lynn Emanuel then introduced Joy Katz and read one of her poems.


Joy Katz recently relocated to Pittsburgh from New York. She is editor-at-large for the journal Pleiades and has taught literature and undergraduate and graduate poetry workshops at Stanford, NYU, The New School, Washington University in St Louis, and University of Missouri-St Louis. Her poetry collections are The Garden Room and Fabulae; she also co-edited the recent anthology Dark Horses: Poets on Lost Poems. Her poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Notre Dame Review, Fence, Colorado Review, Bomb, Court Green, Seneca Review, and the New York Times Book Review, among other places. Her honors include a Stegner fellowship at Stanford University.

Joy Katz - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Ellen McGrath Smith teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Carlow University Madwomen in the Attic.. Her work has been recognized with an AROHO 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, is coming out in October from Seven Kitchens Press and will be available for sale the night of the reading.


Lynn Emanuel holds a BA from Bennington College, an MA from the City College of New York, and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She has taught at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Bennington Writers' Conference, and The Warren Wilson Program in Creative Writing. Currently, she is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of four books of poetry:Hotel Fiesta; The Dig; Then, Suddenly; and Noose and Hook. Her work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry eight times and is included in The Oxford Book of American Poetry. She has been a poetry editor for the Pushcart Prize Anthology, a member of the Literature Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and a judge for the National Book Awards. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Eric Matthieu King Award from The Academy of American Poets, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and a National Poetry Series Award.


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Saturday, August 30, 2014

August 30, 2014 (Baldinger, Brea, Matcho & Newman)

East End Book Exchange
August 30, 2014

Note: This Labor Day Weekend event was curated by Jason Baldinger and is not part of the Hemingway's Poetry Series. It is noteworthy for the presence of three relatively new voices on the Pittsburgh poetry scene. Stephanie Brea has not previously been recorded for this blog. Both Adam Matcho and Dave Newman were recorded once during the previous Hemingway's Poetry Series season but feature here works that focus on the theme of Labor.

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about.  Somewhere in time, he traveled the country, and wrote a few books, the latest of which are “The Lower 48” on Six Gallery Press and “The Studs Terkel Blues” on Night Ballet Press. A short litany of publishing credits include The New Yinzer, Shatter Wig Press, Blast Furnace and you can also hear audio of some poems at http://jasonbaldinger.bandcamp.com/.


Stephanie Brea has slung coffee, written about inventions and worked for a company that built museum exhibits. This means she likes her espresso doubled, is most likely responsible for some of the products pitched on late night infomercials and can spell archaeopteryx without the need for spell check. She is a part-time copy editor and facilitates creative writing workshops for local schools and organizations. Her work has been published in Pear Noir!, The Legendary, Nerve Cowboy and Pittsburgh City Paper.


Adam Matcho is an obituary writer and contributor to The New Yinzer. He is a former technical writer, novelty shop clerk, basketball coach and gas station attendant. His chapbook, Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer, was published by Liquid Paper Press and his essay collection, The Novelty Essays, was published by WPA Press. When not writing death notices, Adam tries to write about life. He lives in a former craft shop with his wife, two sons and too many animals. As Dave Newman has said, "Adam Matcho has more talent than most corporations have profits, and his vision of America is tragic and brilliant and hilarious.”


Dave Newman is the author of the novels Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children (Writers Tribe Books, 2012) and Please Don’t Shoot Anyone Tonight (World Parade Books, 2010), and the collection, The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the Best Books of 2013 by L Magazine. He’s worked as a truck driver, a book store manager, an air filter salesman, a house painter, and a college teacher. More than 100 of his poems and stories have appeared in magazines throughout the world, including Gulf Stream, Word Riot, Smokelong Quarterly, Rattle, Wormwood Review, Tears in the Fence (UK), andThe New Yinzer. He has been the featured writer and on the cover of both 5AM and Chiron Review. Anthologies include Beside the City of Angels (World Parade Books) and The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry(Autumn House Press). Newman has won three chapbooks prizes. In 2004, he received the Andre Dubus Novella Award. He lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.


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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

July 29, 2014 (The New Yinzer Contributors)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 29, 2014

Kurt Garrison is a musician, writer, and photographer who resides in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. When he's not serving as a data analyst for tech start-up Shoefitr, KG plays in soul group Moldies & Monsters and lo-fi minimalists The Plat Maps. A former contributor to The New Yinzer, he currently writes for Pittsburgh Magazine.


Kurt Garrison's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mike Good writes from his apartment in Bloomfield and is from Plum, PA originally. He co-founded the Hour After Happy Hour Writing Workshop, and the After Happy Hour Review journal and reading series. Professionally, he works for Allegheny Land Trust, an environmental nonprofit focusing on land conservation in Allegheny County.



Taylor Grieshober is a writer living in Wilkinsburg, and a waitress to the stars. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Monkeybicycle, Voices from the Attic, The New Yinzer, and Weave. She is also co-director of TNY Presents.


Taylor Grieshober's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mark Mangini is a visual artist and musician who also curates the TiNY art section of The New Yinzer. 


Mark Mangini's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Don Wentworth writes poetry in the short form and has had work published in bear creek haiku, Rolling Stone, Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, The New Yinzer, Cotyledon, Encyclopedia  Destructica, and the anthologies Prairie Smoke and To Life.  His first full-length volume, Past All Traps, was published by Six Gallery Press in 2011.


Don Wentworth's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Carolyne Whelan received her MFA in poetry and nonfiction at Chatham University in 2009. Her first chapbook, The Glossary of Tania Aebi, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Her second chapbook, Chain Down the Moon, and her full length manuscript, Roadside Fires Burning, have both been finalists in national chapbook and first book publishing competitions, respectively. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals, including Blue Heron and Sugar House. She lives in Four Mile Run.


Carolyne Whelan's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Curtis Crisler is an author and Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. After a competition, he was selected for the writing residency by City of Asylum Pittsburgh. His forthcoming poetry book, "This" Ameri-can-ah, will be released in 2015. His other books are Pulling Scabs (nominated for a Pushcart),Tough Boy Sonatas (Young Adult), and Dreamist: a mixed-genre novel (Young Adult). His other poetry chapbooks are Wonderkind, Soundtrack to Latchkey Boy, and Spill. He has been published in many journals, magazines and anthologies.


Curtis Crisler's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Wraps the Season


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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

July 22, 2014 (Finn, Garrett, Peterson, Sargeson, Telfer, Norman and Cvetic)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 22, 2014

Note: This is the event that features special guest Tony Norman and the performance of works by Jimmy Cvetic.

Kevin Finn is a native of Pittsburgh, PA.  He is the author of Sea of Dust (Six Gallery Press) and the chapbook, Exit Wounds (Amsterdam Press).  Also a singer-songwriter, his work has received critical acclaim worldwide.


Nola Garrett is Faculty Emeriti of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She lives in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. Her poems, Macedonian poetry translations, and essays have appeared in Able Muse, Arts & Letters, Christian Century,Christianity and Literature, FIELD, Georgia Review, Imagination and Place, Poet Lore, and Tampa Review. Her chapbook, The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball, won the 1998 American Poets’ Prize and her first book, The Dynamite Maker’s Mistress, a collection of 27 variations on the sestina form, was published by David Robert Books in 2009. She has received a Residency at Yaddo, and Scholarships from the West Chester Poetry Conference and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.  Her full length book of poetry, The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball, was published by Mayapple Press in 2013.


Walt Peterson is the author of three chapbooks of poetry. His last, In the Waiting Room of the Speedy Muffler King,won the Acorn-Rukeyser Award. In addition, he has a memoir, articles on cars and photographs published and does writing workshops, currently, with Franciscan nuns and incarcerated men at SCI Pine Grove in Indiana, PA.  In 2010, he facilitated the creation of the multi-media project and book, Fission and Form, with James Shipman, bringing together the work of painters, sculptors and poets.


Kayla Sargeson is the author of Mini Love Gun (Main Street Rag, 2013). She earned an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago, where she was the recipient of a Follett Fellowship and served as an editor for Columbia Poetry Review. Her work has been anthologized in the national anthology, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as well as Voices from the Attic Volume XIV, and Dionne’s Story. Her poems also appear or are forthcoming in 5 AM, Columbia Poetry Review, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, and Prosody: NPR-affiliate WESA's weekly show. She co-curates the MadFridays reading series and is the poetry editor for PittsburghCity Paper’s online feature Chapter & Verse. Her manuscript Hellwave is being submitted for publication. 


Christine Telfer sustained a head injury while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria (1991-1993).  Prior to that, she won a scholarship to study with Charles Simic at the University of New Hampshire, from which she holds an MA in English. She also has a BA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied with poets Jim Daniels and Gerry Costanzo. For the past twelve years or so, Chris has been teaching English as a Second Language as part of Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Adult ESL program, based in the Hill District, and sometimes as a private instructor. Her work has appeared in, she estimates, some 20 odd publications including Along These Rivers, Eye Contact, Rune, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, ArtCrimes, Poetalk, The Power of Poem, Rain City Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly,and Main Street Rag.  .


Tony Norman began outraging newspaper readers as far back as the mid-1980s when he was a cartoonist and culture reporter for the Calvin College Chimes. In 1988, Norman snuck in the back door of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a news assistant. His stint as a clerk mysteriously turned into a full-time assignment as the PG's pop music/pop culture critic a year and a half later. In 1996, Norman became a columnist. In 1999, he joined the Post-Gazette's editorial board where he does his best to vindicate the "Peter Principle" every day. In 2005, Norman took a year off to pursue a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. After his sabbatical, Norman became even more insufferable. His twice-a-week column is proof that some things never change.


Jimmy Cvetic has been writing and performing poetry all his life. A retired county police officer, he is director of the Pittsburgh Police Athletic League, and founder and director of the Summer Poetry Series at Hemingway's Cafe in Oakland His poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, City Paper and other publications.  He appears in the film, Warrior, and in 2012, he read his poetry at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA with his actor-friend and poet, Nick Nolte.  In 2010, Jimmy's book of poetry, The Secret Society of Dog was published by Awesome Books/Lascaux Editions, and a second volume, Dog Unleashed, was published by Awesome Books in 2012.  Jimmy, his boxing gym and trainers were recently featured in the Esquire cable TV series, “White Collar Brawlers.”


Open Mic


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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

July 15, 2014 (Free State Review Contributors)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 15, 2014

Barrett Warner's poems and stories have recently appeared in Yemassee, Gargoyle, Passager, Slipstream, Four Chambers, Espresso Ink, Pembroke Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook "Til I'm Blue in the Face" (Tropos Press) and he has been a finalist at WWPH, Trio House, Black Lawrence, and University of Wisconsin book prizes. He manages An Otherwise Perfect Farm in Upperco, Maryland. He is associate editor of Free State Review.


As the sole writer and editor of a national Italian foods company and a professor at a local college—Meghan Tutolo is just doing her best to fit art in. When she isn't busy romancing spaghetti or grading papers, she can be found up all night with her paintings, her poems or her roommate's fat cat, Dexter. She graduated with her M.F.A. from Chatham University in 2009, and hasn't stopped writing. Meghan's work has appeared in Nerve Cowboy, The Oklahoma Review, Chiron Reviewand Arsenic Lobster with her first chapbook coming out in summer 2014 from Dancing Girl Press.


Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh where he sells books, plays in bands, watches local sports and edits The New Yinzer.  His work has appeared a number of places including Third Coast, Kitchen Sink, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


Karen Lillis is the author of four novels, most recently, Watch the Doors As They Close (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012). She runs Small Press Pittsburgh, a pop up indie press bookstand. Her writing has appeared in Evergreen Review, Everyday Genius, Sensitive Skin Magazine, Free State Review,Toad Suck Review, and many more. She will appear in two anthologies in 2014: Wreckage of Reason Two (Spuyten Duyvil) and From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream(Autonomedia).


Jason Irwin grew up in Dunkirk, NY and now lives in Pittsburgh. His first collection of poetry, Watering the Dead, won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award and was published in 2008 by Pavement Saw Press. In 2005, his manuscript, "Some Days It's A Love Story," won the Slipstream Press Chapbook Prize, and his one-act play, Civilization, had its staged reading debut on April 24, 2010 at The Living Theatre, NYC.   In 2005, his manuscript, Some Days It's A Love Story won the Slipstream Press Chapbook Prize. His forthcoming chapbook “Where You Are” will be published by Night Ballet Press in 2014.  www.jasonirwin.blogspot.com


Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Her poetry has appeared in 5 AM, Cider Press Review, Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, US 1 Worksheets, among other journals, and in various anthologies, including Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant), Come Together: Imagine Peace (Bottom Dog) and Voices from the Attic (Carlow University). Her poem, “Fig Season,” will appear in Beyond the Lyric Moment (Tebot Bach, 2014), an anthology honoring David St. John. Her second full-length book of poetry, Glass Blocks & Begonias, is forthcoming from Tebot Bach in 2015.


Jimmy Cvetic reads Trying Not to Remember What I'm Supposed to Forget


Open Mic


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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

July 8, 2014 (Shotland, Matcho, Jakiela, Newman)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 8, 2014

Sarah Shotland is a novelist and playwright.  Her first novel, Junkette, is available from White Gorilla Press.  Her latest play, Cereus Moonlight, was produced by miR theater in Florida and was featured at RhinoFest 2014 in Chicago.  Other plays have been produced in New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, and Chicago, and internationally in Chongqing, China and Madrid, Spain.  She is currently co-editing a literary anthology, Make Mine Words, due out from Trinity University Press in Fall 2015.  She is the co-founder and program coordinator for Words Without Walls, which brings creative writing workshops into the Allegheny County Jail and teaches in Chatham University's MFA program. She once held a job teaching opera singers how to tap dance.   


Adam Matcho is an obituary writer and contributor to The New Yinzer. He is a former technical writer, novelty shop clerk, basketball coach and gas station attendant. His chapbook, Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer, was published by Liquid Paper Press and his essay collection, The Novelty Essays, was published by WPA Press. When not writing death notices, Adam tries to write about life. He lives in a former craft shop with his wife, two sons and too many animals. As Dave Newman has said, "Adam Matcho has more talent than most corporations have profits, and his vision of America is tragic and brilliant and hilarious.”


Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoirs, The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press, 2013) andMiss New York Has Everything (Hatchette, 2006), as well as the poetry collection Spot the Terrorist! (Turning Point, 2012). Her third memoir, Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in 2015. She was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match and has read her work at Lollapalooza. She's not sure which was more terrifying. Her essays and poems have been widely published, most recently in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Rumpus, Superstition Review, Brevity and more. She lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania.


Dave Newman is the author of the novels Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children (Writers Tribe Books, 2012) and Please Don’t Shoot Anyone Tonight (World Parade Books, 2010), and the collection, The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the Best Books of 2013 by L Magazine. He’s worked as a truck driver, a book store manager, an air filter salesman, a house painter, and a college teacher. More than 100 of his poems and stories have appeared in magazines throughout the world, including Gulf Stream, Word Riot, Smokelong Quarterly, Rattle, Wormwood Review, Tears in the Fence (UK), andThe New Yinzer. He has been the featured writer and on the cover of both 5AM and Chiron Review. Anthologies include Beside the City of Angels (World Parade Books) and The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry(Autumn House Press). Newman has won three chapbooks prizes. In 2004, he received the Andre Dubus Novella Award. He lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.


Jimmy Cvetic reads Crispy


Open Mic


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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

July 1, 2014 (Brice, Buccilli, Ferrarelli, Murabito, Samraney)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 1, 2014

Judith Brice, a former psychiatrist, credits much of her inspiration to her past work with her patients, her own experiences with illness, her love for nature and her strong feelings about politics. Her work has been published in several newspapers, reviews, and anthologies including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the City Paper (of Pittsburgh), the Paterson Literary Review, Poesia, and The Lyric. She has received Editor’s Choice Award in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest in 2008 Paterson Literary Review for one of her poems, and another poem is currently in the permanent archives of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Her book of poems, Renditions in a Palette, was published by WordTech Communications in 2013.


Daniela Buccilli is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshop and the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project.  A school teacher for over 20 years, she earned her MFA from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001.  Her poems have appeared in Voices from the Attic, The Fourth River, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, uppagus, Italian Americana,and The City Paper.  Born in Italy, she now lives in Gibsonia.  Her book manuscript is called Hippie Teachers.


Rina Ferrarelli came from Italy at the age of fifteen. She taught English and translation studies at the University of Pittsburgh for many years. She has published a book and a chapbook of original poetry, Home Is a Foreign Country(1996), and Dreamsearch (1992); and three books of translation, Light Without Motion (1989), I Saw the Muses(Guernica, 1997), and Winter Fragments: Selected Poems of Bartolo Cattafi, (2006). The Bread We Ate, another book of poems, was published by Guernica in Spring 2012.


Poet and fiction writer Stephen Murabito is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg campus. He has been an NEA Fellow in Poetry, and his books in that genre are A Little Dinner Music (a chapbook, ParallelPress); The Oswego Fugues (a book-length poem), Communion of Asiago, and Lowering the Body (all from Star Cloud Press). His poems are anthologized in Encore: More of Parallel Press Poets (Parallel Press), Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry (Autumn House Press), and Along These Rivers (Quadrant Publishing). His short story collection is Chasing Saint George (Star Cloud Press). He lives in Saltsburg, PA, with his wife, April, and their four children, Angie,Stella, Toni, and Sebastian.


Joanne Samraney, author of the poetry chapbook, Grounded Angels, which won the 2001 Acorn-Rukeyser Award and co-author of Breaking Bread with the Boscos, a collection of family memoirs and recipes has poems in many literary magazines and journals such as Main Street Rag, Verve, Voices in Italian Americana, Loyalhanna Review and most recently in Hudson View, Earth Daughters and Steam Ticket.  Her poems have also appears in both Along These Rivers and the Sandburg-Livesay anthologies.  Her latest chapbook, Remaking Driftwood was published by Finishing Line Press (2010).


Jimmy Cvetic reads Daughter of God


Open Mic


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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

June 24, 2014 (Caliban Book Shop & Low Ghost Press)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
June 24, 2014

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about.  Somewhere in time, he traveled the country, and wrote a few books, the latest of which are “The Lower 48” on Six Gallery Press and “The Studs Terkel Blues” on Night Ballet Press. A short litany of publishing credits include The New Yinzer, Shatter Wig Press, Blast Furnace and you can also hear audio of some poems at http://jasonbaldinger.bandcamp.com/.



M. Callen is a multidisciplinary artist and poet from Pittsburgh, PA.  Her work has appeared in Fence, Gigantic, The Atlas Review, The New Guard, and other fine publications.  She is the recipient of fellowships from the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets.  You can find her online at m-callen.com



Kristofer Collins is the Books Editor at Pittsburgh Magazine. He runs Low Ghost Press. He also owns Desolation Row Records and manages Caliban Bookshop in Oakland. His most recent chapbook is "Last Call" published by Speed & Briscoe in 2010.




Bob Pajich is a writer and musician from the Burgh. His latest book, The Trolleyman, was published by Stanton Heights' Low Ghost Press. He is a Taurus. 



Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh where he sells books, plays in bands, watches local sports and edits The New Yinzer.  His work has appeared a number of places including Third Coast, Kitchen Sink, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.



 Daniel M. Shapiro is a special education teacher in the Woodland Hills School District. His first full-length collection of poems, How the Potato Chip Was Invented, was published by sunnyoutside press in December 2013. He is also the author of two chapbooks and a collection of collaborations with Jessy Randall. His poems have appeared in such journals as Sentence, Gargoyle, Rhino, Ping Pong, Barge, and Word Riot.



John Schulman is the co-owner of Caliban Book Shop in Oakland.


Jimmy Cvetic reads A Conversation With God


Open Mic


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