Featured Readers
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Kristofer Collins has been writing about books and their authors professionally for over twenty years. He has spent the last fifteen years as the Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine covering the local literary community. He is the author of several poetry collections, including Roundabout Trace published by Kung Fu Treachery Press in 2022. He was the publisher of Low Ghost Press from 2008-2020. His writing has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The New Yinzer, 1839, LitHub, Belt Magazine, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Gasconade, Vox Populi, Kidsburgh, Appalachian Journal, The New Antiquarian, Jerry Jazz Musician, Uppagus, and more. He was nominated for a Robert L. Vann Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2022. He is co-curator with Joan Bauer of the long-running Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series. The Vesper Room (Luchador Press, 2025) is his latest poetry collection. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their children.
Opening Comments by Kristofer Collins - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Joan E. Bauer is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Fig Season (Turning Point, 2023), The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2021), and The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). With Judith Robinson and Sankar Roy, she co-edited the award-winning international anthology, Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts and Rupa & Co, 2005). Over 350 of her poems have been published in journals, periodicals and anthologies in the US and abroad. Recent work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream, Chiron Review and Vox Populi: A Curated Webspace for Poetry, Politics and Nature. For some years, she was a teacher and counselor. She now divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.
Richard St. John is a nationally-published poet whose newest collection of poetry, Book of Entangled Souls, was published in June 2022 by Broadstone Books. His other books include Each Perfected Name (Truman State University Press, 2015), The Pure Inconstancy of Grace (published in 2005 by Truman State University Press, as first runner-up for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), and Shrine (a long poem released as a chapbook in 2011). His work has also appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies. He has read widely across the country, connecting not only with literary audiences but with listeners new to poetry. For more go to: www.richardstjohnpoet.com
Richard St. John - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Timons Esaias is a sporadically award-winning satirist, writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He has been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award and the Seiun Award, twice won the Asimov’;s Readers Award, and won the Winter Anthology Contest for 2020. His story, ”Norbert and the System,” has appeared in a textbook, and in college curricula. He was shortlisted for the Gregory O. Donoghue International Poetry Prize. He is a Pushcart nominee and Intrepid Award winner for the story, “To Do.” His full-length Louis-Award-winning collection of poetry – Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek -- was brought out by Concrete Wolf. Scholars are convinced that Walter de la Mare’s 1918 poem, “Poor Tired Tim! It’s sad for him,” was written about him.
Timons Esaias - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Cate Peebles is the author of two poetry collections, Thicket (Lost Roads Press, 2018) and The Haunting (Tupelo Press, 2025), and five chapbooks, including Sun King, winner of the 2024 Tomaž Salamun Prize from Factory Hollow Press, and The Woodlands, winner of the 2016 Sixth Finch chapbook contest. Her poetry has appeared widely in print and online literary magazines such as The American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Boston Review, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, diode, Fence, Ploughshares, Tin House, and Volt. She is coeditor of the online poetry magazine Fou. Her writing has been awarded grants from The Academy of American Poets and the Vermont Studio Center.
Cate Peebles - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Chiwan Choi is the author of six books of poetry: The Flood, the Daughter trilogy—Abductions, The Yellow House and my name is wolf—Sky Songs and birthdays. He wrote, presented and destroyed the novel Ghostmaker throughout the course of 2015. His writing has appeared in New York Times Magazine, ONTHEBUS, Zócalo Public Square and other publications. Chiwan is a partner at the experimental literary laboratory Writ Large Projects. For more: http://www.chiwanchoi.com
Chiwan Choi - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Marcel Lamont (M.L.) Walker is an award-winning graphic-prose creator and authority in social applications for comic-book art. In 2017, he was voted Best Local Cartoonist by readers of The Pittsburgh City Paper, and in 2018, he was awarded a BMe ("bee-mee") Community Genius Fellowship in recognition of his work in the arts. His clients have included The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, WYEP and others. In 2024, he was designated a Pittsburgh Cultural Treasure by The Heinz Endowments and the Ford and POISE Foundations. He continues to work with educators and students across the country to promote the use of literature and visual art as forces for social good.
Lamont Walker - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
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