June 2, 2015 (Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

June 2, 2015

Michael Albright has published poems in various journals and periodicals, including Loyalhanna Review, Uppagus, U.S. 1 Worksheets, The New People, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others. He is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop. Michael lives on a windy hilltop near Greensburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Lori, and an ever-changing array of children and other animals. His chapbook, In Hall of Dead Birds and Viking Tools, was recently accepted by Finishing Line Press.

Michael Albright - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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

Ann Curran - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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 5 AM, Paper Street, Nexus, Main Street Rag, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Pittsburgh City Paper, 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.  With her son Jude Rosen, she co-edits  the online journal, uppagus.

Ziggy Edwards - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Erin Garstka won the 1999 Taproot Literary Review Contest, and she has been a featured reader at Bloomfield Sacred Arts Festival. Her poetry has appeared in The Lyric, Mediphors, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Loyalhanna Review, and The Exchange. She and her husband Mark conduct a local poetry forum, Monroeville Poets. Invisible River Publishing released her chapbook, The Thought of a Hat (2003). 

Erin Garstka - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Christine Doreian Michaels came from England in 1971 and is a retired psychologist living inRegent Square. She was an invited reader at the James Wright Poetry Festival, and is published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Exchange, Taproots, Songs For The Living, Signatures 2001, 2003, 2006, and the international anthologies, No Choice But To Trust and Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami. She won first poetry prize in The Labyrinth Society's annual contest 2007 and has a poem in Along These Rivers, an anthology celebrating Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.

Christine Doreian Michaels - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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 inMain Street Rag, Pearl, Pudding, Snowy Egret, Blueline, and other publications.

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Pam O'Brien began writing poetry at Allegheny College. 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 ofGeneral 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, was published in 2012.

Pam O'Brien - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, a native New Yorker, taught creative writing, Classical Literature, World Mythology, and founded a Myth/Folklore Studies Center at IUP. She co-edited the prize-winning Life on the Line, and is the author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces, The Approximate Message, and In the Fall of a Sparrow.  She has read her poems in Ireland, Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain, andBratislava and has collaborated on 20 pieces with composers and other artists. Her work has been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies. She as received grants from the National Endowment and the Witter Bynner Foundations and was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts at IUP. Most recently, the collaborative piece, "Furoshiki" (languages that speak without words at the center) premiered in Philadelphia. Facilitator of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, she was brought to England to be a featured writer on the BBC's "Writer from Abroad" series. In 2012 Tebot Bach published her latest book of poems, I Want to Thank My Eyes.

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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, EarthDaughters and Steam Ticket.  Her poems have also appears in both Along These Rivers and theSandburg-Livesay Anthologies.  Her latest chapbook, Remaking Driftwood was published byFinishing Line Press (2010). 

Joanne Samraney - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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 PittsburghPost-Gazette, and Squirrel Hill Magazine.  She is the author of Pronouncing What We Want to Keep.

Shirley Stevens - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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.”

Arlene Weiner - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic Reads "Sex Texting Will Never Understand Blue Balls"

Sex Texting Will Never Understand Blue Balls - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

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