Hemingway's Poetry Series: August 12, 2025 (Carson, Corpuz, Crago, Marcum, Montanez)

Featured Readers

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Front Row: Virginia Montanez, Jay Carson & Joan Bauer

Back Row (L-R): Carl Marcum, Kristofer Collins, Elisabeth Crago & Veronica Corpuz

Kristofer Collins is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Low Ghost Press founded in 2008 and the longtime Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is also the co-curator of the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series. His latest book, Roundabout Trace, was published in 2022 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)

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). Recent work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream and Chiron Review. She divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.

Additional Opening Comments by Joan Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jay Carson taught for many years at Robert Morris University where he was a founding advisor for the literary magazine Rune. He has published more than 100 poems and short stories in national journals, anthologies and collections. Jay is also the author of Irish Coffee (Coal Hill Review) and The Cinnamon of Desire (Main Street Rag). His hybrid memoir, A Legacy of Myth, was published in 2025. He considers his work to be Appalachian, accessible, the ongoing problem-solving of a turbulent life, and just what you might need.

Jay Carson - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Veronica Corpuz is an interdisciplinary poet who explores themes of grief, memory and family in her work. A member of the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University and the #notwhite collective, she facilitates writing workshops that invite discovery and delight through guided imagery and grounding, embodiment exercises.

Veronica Corpuz - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Elisabeth Crago holds an MFA from Carlow University with a dual focus on poetry and creative non-fiction. She has degrees in English and Nursing. In a former life, life, Crago administered a large breast health services program in Eastern, PA. She then spent 12 years involved in farming and aquaculture in New Zealand. In 2014 she relocated to Pittsburgh where she volunteers at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, the Center for Women, and is active in the Madwomen in the Attic program of Carlow University. Her work has been published in Voices in the Attic, Eye on the Telescope, Dreamers Creative Writing, One Art Poetry, and Carlow University’s MFA anthology.

Elisabeth Crago - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Carl Marcum is a Latino poet from Tucson, Arizona. He is the author of Cue Lazarus, and A Camera Obscura, winner of the Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Wind Shifts: An Anthology of New Latino Poets, and Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Sci-Fi and Fantasy among other journals and anthologies. Marcum earned his MFA from the University of Arizona and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has been a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Illinois Arts Council and served as a Canto Mundo Fellow. He taught for several years at DePaul University in Chicago and now lives in Pittsburgh where he teaches in the BXA Intercollege Degree Program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Carl Marcum - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Virginia Montanez, formerly known under her anonymous alias PittGirl, is a longtime writer who once spent the day as one of the most-Googled names in the country when she was fired from her nonprofit Pittsburgh job after revealing her identity as the writer of the popular humor site The Burgh Blog. Montanez went on to publish a successful follow-up blog about Pittsburgh and then became the humor columnist for Pittsburgh Magazine before leaving to focus on writing novels. Her debut novel Nothing. Everything was published in 2023 by Winding Road Stories. She is the volunteer founder of Make Room for Kids at Mario Lemieux Foundation, a program that has placed hundreds of XBOXes in nearly every in-patient room at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. She is the creator of the history mapping project Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen. Additionally, she authors the history column for Pittsburgh Magazine and teaches the Pittsburgh History to World War II class for the Osher continuing education program at the University of Pittsburgh. She has been profoundly hearing impaired since birth.