Special thanks to White Whale Events Manager Anna Claire Weber for hosting this Zoom meeting.
Note that a link for the entire reading, including introductory and closing remarks, is available at the bottom of this post.
Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor. 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. She curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her second full-length book of poetry, The Camera Artist, is forthcoming from Turning Point in 2021.
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.
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 has traveled the country, and wrote a few books, the latest of which are The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and the chapbook The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press). For more on Jason, go to: https://jasonbaldinger.bandcamp.com. He'd like to remind you that voting is pretty damned important and if you need a ride to your polling place, he'll be happy help you out.
Cameron Barnett is the author of The Drowning Boy's Guide to Water (Autumn House Press) which was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He earned his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and teaches middle school English. He is the recipient of the 2019 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for Emerging Artist. Cameron’s work explores the complexity of race and the body for a black man in today’s America, more of which can be found at cameronbarnett.net.
Doralee Brooks teaches at the Community College of Allegheny County and chairs the Developmental Studies Department. She is a fellow of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project ('95) and Cave Canem ('97 and '99). Doralee holds an MFA from Carlow University, writes with the Madwomen in the Attic Poetry Workshops, and is a proud founding member of the (sub) Verses Social Collective. Her poems have appeared in many journals including Paterson Literary Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Dos Passos Review. Her chapbook, When I Hold You Up to the Light, won the 2019 Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest published by Main Street Rag.
Doralee Brooks - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Malcolm Friend is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He received his BA from Vanderbilt University, and his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry, 2017), and the full length collection Our Bruises Kept Singing Purple (Inlandia Books, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Together with JR Mahung he is a member of Black Plantains, an Afrocaribbean poetry collective.
Malcolm Friend - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Celeste Gainey is the author of the poetry collection, the GAFFER, (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press), cited by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “8 New Books of Poetry to Savor.” Her chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press), was runner-up for the prestigious Robin Becker Prize. She has been a Hedgebrook Writer in Residence as well as a presenting poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and is currently the inaugural City Of Asylum’s Poet Laureate for Allegheny County. Graduating with a BFA in Film & Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at 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. www.celestegainey.com
Celeste Gainey - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Emily Mohn-Slate is the author of The Falls, winner of the 2019 New American Poetry Prize, (forthcoming in 2020 from New American Press), and FEED, winner of the 2018 Keystone Chapbook Prize (Seven Kitchens Press). She teaches high school English at Winchester Thurston School, and poetry workshops for the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University.
Emily Mohn-Slate - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Adriana E. RamÃrez is a Mexican-Colombian poet, critic, and writer. In 2015, she won the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writer’s Prize for Dead Boys (Little A, 2016). Her work can be found in the LA Times, ESPN’s The Undefeated, and Literary Hub. Her long-awaited book, The Violence, is forthcoming from Scribner.
Adriana E. Ramirez - 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 program. Her poetry has appeared in The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Talking Writing, Los Angeles Review, and other journals and anthologies. Books include Scatter, Feed (Seven Kitchens 2014) and Nobody's Jackknife (West End Press 2015).
Ellen McGrath Smith - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Don Wentworth’s work reflects his interest in the revelatory nature of brief, numinous moments in everyday life. He is the author of 3 full-length poetry collections from Six Gallery Press, the most recent being With a Deepening Presence. Forthcoming books include collections of ghazals from Low Ghost Press and haiku from Lascaux Editions.
Don Wentworth - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
The Entire Reading
The Whole Thing - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
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