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.
Emily Carlson is the author of Majestic Cut (Fernwood Press, 2026), Why Misread a Cloud, which won Tupelo Press’ 2022 Sunken Garden Chapbook Award, I Have a Teacher, which won the 2016 Center for Book Arts Chapbook Competition, and Symphony No 2. Emily teaches poetry at a Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, is the director of Art in the Garden and, with friends, runs the Bonfire Reading Series. Emily lives with her partner and their three children in a cohousing community in East Liberty that’s centered around a garden.
Frank Lehner is a poet, award-winning book designer, folk artist, and playwright. Frank hails from and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife, the writer and educator, Nancy Koerbel, and their Husky mix, Mssr. Bârü. Frank holds a BA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's degree in psychology from Duquesne University. His poetry has appeared in diverse periodicals and his plays have been staged in Pittsburgh and New York City. His new book, Mrs. Nussbaum's Monkey (2025), a Pittsburgh pastoral, was published by Bottom Dog Press in 2025.
Frank Lehner - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Heather McNaugher is the author of Second-order Desire and System of Hideouts and two poetry chapbooks, Panic & Joy and Double Life. Currently nonfiction editor of The Fourth River, she has published prose in Fourth Genre and The Bellevue Literary Review. A member of The Barbara Pym Society, she recently presented and published her paper, “A Plain-looking Woman No Longer Young: Acceptance as Irony in Crampton Hodnet."
Sony Ton-Aime serves as Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures. He is a Haitian poet, translator, and art administrator. His poetry collection Konbit is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press, (2026). He is the author the chapbook, LaWomann (2019), the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, and co-founding editor of ID13. His favorite book is Gouverneurs de la Rosee by Jacques Roumain. He enjoys cooking and photography.
Open Mic
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