May 31, 2022 (Hyer, Matcho, Nguyen, Smith & Weiner)

 

 Featured Readers

Click to Enlarge - Right-Click to Download

 

Seated L-R: Halsey Hyer & Arlene Weiner

Standing L-R: Ellen McGrath Smith, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Kristofer Collins, Joan Bauer & Adam Matcho

 

Special thanks to Anna Claire Weber of White Whale Bookstore for hosting and recording this event.

Note that a link for the entire reading is available at the bottom of this post.

Kristofer Collins is the longtime Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-curator of The Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series. His latest book The River Is Another Kind of Prayer: New & Selected Poems was published in 2020 by Kung Fu Treachery Press. His latest project, The Pittsburgh Book Review can be found at https://pittsburghbookreview.blogspot.com/. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife, son and daughter.

Opening Comments by Kristofer Collins - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Halsey Hyer is the author of the forthcoming chapbook, [deadname], winner of the Anhinga Press 2022 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award, and the micro-chapbook of micro-poems Everything Becomes Bananas (Rinky Dink Press, 2022). They’re currently earning their MFA in Creative Writing as the 2022-2024 Margaret L. Whitford Fellow at Chatham University. They were a Creative Writing MFA candidate at Florida International University where they taught in the Creative Writing and Writing & Rhetoric programs. They’re an Editorial Assistant for Seven Kitchens Press, collective member of The Big Idea Bookstore, and the Events Coordinator at White Whale Bookstore. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in The Boiler, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and elsewhere. Find out more—www.halseyhyer.org. 

Halsey Hyer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)  

 

Adam Matcho was born in North Dakota, but really came up in Johnstown, PA, in the ‘90s. He has held several miserable jobs and published one book of essays and two collections of poetry. His third collection of poems, Ask Your Undertaker, is set for publication by WPA Press. 

Adam Matcho - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)   

 

A poet and multimedia artist, Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Ghost Of (Omnidawn 2018) and recipient of a 2021 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to winning the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Colorado Book Award, she was also a finalist for the National Book Award and L.A. Times Book Prize. A Kundiman fellow, she is core faculty in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. This spring 2022, she is an artist-in-residence at Brown University. 

Diana Khoi Nguyen - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)   

 

Ellen McGrath Smith’s award-winning poetry, short fiction, literary criticism, and scholarship have been published in anthologies and print and online journals nationwide. She has received the Zone 3 Rainmaker Award, the Orlando Prize from the A Room of Her Own Foundation, and other honors. A teacher at the University of Pittsburgh and Carlow University, McGrath Smith holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in English literature from Duquesne University. She lives, writes, works, and practices yoga in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was born and raised. https://www.ellenmcgrathsmith.com/

Ellen McGrath Smith - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)     

Arlene Weiner has been a Shakespeare scholar, a cardiology technician, a den mother, part of a group developing computer-based education, and an editor for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. She is a member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop. Arlene’s poems have been published in such journals as Pleiades, Poet Lore, and Paterson Literary Review, and in anthologies; and read on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac. Arlene held a MacDowell fellowship. She also writes plays. Arlene’s most recent book is City Bird (Ragged Sky, Princeton, NJ, 2016).

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

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008) and The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2020). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor in public and independent schools. In 2007, she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International and in 2018, she was a finalist for the John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk Press. Since 2001, more than 250 of her poems have been published and three have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Joan co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her new book of poetry, Fig Season, is forthcoming from Turning Point in 2023.

Closing Remarks by Joan E. Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

The Entire Reading

The Whole Thing - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mac users who lack a 2-button mouse may press Control-Click on the appropriate links to enable downloads. 

May 17, 2022 (Andrews, Bashaar, Esaias, Good, Mitchell)

 

 

 Featured Participants

 Click to Enlarge - Right-Click to Download

 

Seated L-R: Joan Bauer & Kristofer Collins 

Standing L-R: Timons Esaias, Mike Good, Kelly Lorraine Andrews, Margaret Bashaar & Gwendolyn A. Mitchell 

 

Special thanks to Halsey Hyer of White Whale Bookstore for hosting and recording this event.

Note that a link for the entire reading is available at the bottom of this post.

Kristofer Collins is the longtime Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-curator of The Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series. His latest book The River Is Another Kind of Prayer: New & Selected Poems was published in 2020 by Kung Fu Treachery Press. His latest project, The Pittsburgh Book Review can be found at https://pittsburghbookreview.blogspot.com/. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife, son and daughter.

Opening Comments by Kristofer Collins - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Kelly Lorraine Andrews' poems have appeared in Dream Pop Journal, Ghost Proposal, Ninth Letter, PANK, and Prick of the Spindle, among others. She is the author of five chapbooks, including Sonnets in Which the Speaker Is on Display, The Fear Archives, and My Body Is a Poem I Can't Stop Writing. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh. Along with her husband and two cats, she's tending to her garden, trying to be tender to herself.

Kelly Lorraine Andrews - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Margaret Bashaar is the author of Stationed Near the Gateway from Sundress Publications, along with numerous chapbooks. She is the founding editor of Hyacinth Girl Press and co-host/co-founder of the occasional anarchist poetry event, FREE POEMS.

Margaret Bashaar - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Timons Esaias is a satirist, writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He has also been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award, and twice won the Asimov's Readers Award. His story "Norbert and the System" has appeared in a textbook, and in college curricula. He was shortlisted for the 2019 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His full-length Louis-Award-winning collection of poetry — Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek — was brought out by Concrete Wolf.

Timons Esaias - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Mike Good lives in Pittsburgh and serves as managing editor at Autumn House Press. Some of his recent poetry can be found in or are forthcoming at Bennington Review, december, Five Points, Prolit, Ploughshares, Salamander, Terrain.org, Waxwing, and elsewhere, in addition to anthologies such as The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook (Belt Publishing). His work has received support from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and The Sun, and he holds an MFA from Hollins University. Find more at mikegoodwrites.wordpress.com.

Mike Good - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)  

Gwendolyn A. Mitchell—poet, editor and literary consultant—is the former Senior Editor for Third World Press. Her poems have been published in journals such as American Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry South and Essence Magazine. She has conducted workshops and seminars on poetry and the literary arts across the country. Mitchell is the author of the poetry collection, House of Women, and is the co-editor of two literary anthologies. She currently lives in Pittsburgh and is a member of and mentor for the Madwomen in the Attic community of writers.

Gwendolyn A. Mitchell - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)  

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008) and The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2020). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor in public and independent schools. In 2007, she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International and in 2018, she was a finalist for the John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk Press. Since 2001, more than 250 of her poems have been published and three have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Joan co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her new book of poetry, Fig Season, is forthcoming from Turning Point in 2023.

Closing Remarks by Joan E. Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

The Entire Reading

The Whole Thing - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mac users who lack a 2-button mouse may press Control-Click on the appropriate links to enable downloads. 

 

May 3, 2022 (Hess, Rashid, Silsbe, Penn & Gainey)

Featured Participants

Click to Enlarge - Right-Click to Download

 

Front L-R: Joan Bauer, Celeste Gainey & Anne Rashid

Back L-R: Arlan Hess, Scott Silsbe, Bonita Lee Penn & Kristofer Collins

Special thanks to Halsey Hyer of White Whale Bookstore for hosting and recording this event.

Note that a link for the entire reading is available at the bottom of this post.

Kristofer Collins is the longtime Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-curator of The Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series. His latest book The River Is Another Kind of Prayer: New & Selected Poems was published in 2020 by Kung Fu Treachery Press. His latest project, The Pittsburgh Book Review can be found at https://pittsburghbookreview.blogspot.com/. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife and son.

Opening Comments by Kristofer Collins - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

 

Arlan Hess is the owner of City Books. She hosts Shelf Life, a book show about Pittsburgh authors & topics relevant to western Pennsylvania, leads Arts & Literature tours around the old Allegheny West neighborhood, and directs the City Books Writer-in-Residence program for emerging & marginalized writers. With credits in food, music, and travel writing, her work has appeared in print and online in The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Connotation Press, The Literary Bohemian, atU2.com, and USA Today. She is a regular contributor to The Writer Shed, a podcast hosted by David W. Berner of WBBM/WXRT radio in Chicago.

 

Arlan Hess Reads Lucie Brock Broido - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

 

Anne M. Rashid is a professor of English and director of Women's and Gender Studies at Carlow University. She has published poetry in Pittsburgh’s City Paper, Paterson Literary Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Fourth River and Sampsonia Way. She and her co-translator, the late Chae-Pyong Song, published translations of Korean poetry in multiple journals. Her essay, "Lucille Clifton's and Claudia Rankine's Elegiac Poetics of Nature" was recently published in Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era. 

 

Anne M. Rashid Reads Patricia Dobler - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

 

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit. He now lives in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. His poems and prose have appeared in numerous periodicals and have been collected in four books: Unattended Fire, The River Underneath the City, Muskrat Friday Dinner, and Meet Me Where We Survive. He is also an assistant editor at Low Ghost Press.

 

Scott Silsbe Reads Jack Gilbert - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

 

Bonita Lee Penn is a Pittsburgh poet, literary curator, author of Every Morning a Foot is Looking for my Neck (Central Square Press). Her work has been included in the anthology Where We Stand: Poems of Black Resilience (2022 Cherry Castle Publishing); The Massachusetts Review, Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices, and others. She is a member of the experimental performance group Heroes Are Gang Leaders and Poetry facilitator for Madwomen in the Attic Creative Writing Workshop.

 

Bonita Lee Penn Reads Etheridge Knight - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

 

Celeste Gainey is the author of the GAFFER, cited by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “8 New Books of Poetry to Savor” in 2015, as well as the chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography. She has been a presenting poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, and served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Allegheny County for City of Asylum from 2020-2022. Graduating with a BFA in Film & Television from New York University, as well as earning an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, and has spent many years working with light in film and architecture. 

 

Celeste Gainey Reads Gertrude Stein - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008) and The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2020). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor in public and independent schools. In 2007, she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International and in 2018, she was a finalist for the John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk Press. Since 2001, more than 250 of her poems have been published and three have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Joan co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her new book of poetry, Fig Season, is forthcoming from Turning Point in 2023.

Closing Remarks by Joan E. Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

The Entire Reading

The Unfragmented Version - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mac users who lack a 2-button mouse may press Control-Click on the appropriate links to enable downloads.