Blogging the Pittsburgh Literary Scene

Zine writer Artnoose reads to a crowd at Belvedere's, July 2011.

Over at my literary blog, Karen the Small Press Librarian, I am posting year-end Best of the Small Press lists (as I have for the past few years) from small press authors, editors, reading series hosts, and other indie lit movers and shakers. This year I did something different and chose participants from the many small press folks who visited or read in Pittsburgh in 2011. This gives me a chance to highlight the Pittsburgh literary scene along the way (on my normally-not-Pittsburgh-focused small press blog).

I am sometimes surprised by how little is known (outside of the literary scene) about Pittsburgh readings. I get the impression that some people think the sum total of Pittsburgh's literature is a number of colleges bringing in national writers, and maybe a few local poets scribbling things in isolation, plus Michael Chabon. But the city has a flourishing, supportive scene of small presses, reading series, literary magazines, bookstores, homegrown poets, transplanted writers, and visiting authors, unconnected to/in addition to the universities.

So check out the December posts at my blog to see just a small fraction of what went on in Pittsburgh letters in 2011. I may extend a few days into January, too, so check back if it interests you.

Poet Nick Demske reads at Lili Coffee Shop in Polish Hill, September.

Poet Bob Pajich reads at ModernFormations with The New Yinzer Presents reading series, March.

Fiction author Gary Lutz reads at Awesome Books on Penn Avenue, August.

Writer Lori Jakiela (R) and teammate won the Literary Death Match at Brillobox in November.

Fleeting Pages pop-up bookstore brought small press books to a former Borders space in East Liberty, May 2011.

TONIGHT in Pittsburgh's Literary Scene

Three events are competing for your ear tonight on Pittsburgh's literary landscape:

JAZZ POETRY Concert

sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh
Poet Sonia Sanchez

with many other City of Asylum poets from around the world
music by Oliver Lake and Tarbaby
7:30 pm, Saturday, Sept. 10
The New Hazlett Theater (this venue shift was recently announced due to the rainy forecast)

North Side
FREE

Creative Nonfiction release party, Issue 42, "The Night"
Readings, art display, and refreshments
7:30 pm, Saturday, Sept. 10
The Irma Freeman Center for the Imagination
5006 Penn Avenue

Garfield/Bloomfield

FREE

September Cool-Off open mic event
Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writer's House

7:00-9:00pm Saturday, Sept. 10
5431 Carnegie Street at 55th Street

Lawrenceville
$2-$4 donation

Literary Pittsburgh: Readings Galore This Weekend

The next few days are packed with great readings: I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

Saturday afternoon, August 29th, 1:30pm: Autumn House at the Pump House. Pittsburgh’s own Autumn House Press will host one novelist and one poet at the historic
Pump House in Homestead: There’s a nice review of John Hoerr’s novel Monogahela Dusk in the City Paper this week; Hoerr is actually a long-time labor journalist, and this is his first work of fiction. I’m a big fan of Robert Gibb’s poetry, especially his Homestead Trilogy. Gibb will read at the Pump House from a new Autumn House volume of his work, What the Heart Can Bear: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1979-1993.

Saturday night, August 29th: East End avant-garde publisher Six Gallery Press is holding their periodic Showcase (this one is called Hot August Night) with 14 readers from the Pittsburgh poetry underground. Digging Pitt blogger, videographer extraordinaire, talented poet, and charismatic reader Jessica Fenlon (pictured) will read from her new book of poetry, Spiritual Side Effects. Guest author Kevin Finn will read from his new chapbook, Exit Wounds (Ohio: Amsterdam Press), Six Galllery poet Michael S. Begnal is visiting from North Carolina, and all will share the stage with many other local talents: Renee Alberts, Nikki Allen, Jerome Crooks, Davka, Che Elias, Bill Hughes, Jonathan Loucks, Alexi Morrissey, Scott Silsbe, Ed Steck, Billie Steigerwald, Matt Wellins, and Don Wentworth of Lilliput Review fame. Local rock stars Colin Baxter and Julie Sokolow will provide the musical entertainment. ModernFormations at 4919 Penn Avenue, $5 at the door, 8:00pm, BYOB.

Late-night on August 29th (hey, you could make it to all 3 of Saturday's readings if you wanted to): KINETIX! (formerly Poetry…Yes!) is a new late-night poetry series that happens once a month and runs from 11:00pm-1:00am in the theater lobby at The New Hazlett Theater on the Northside. Featured Pittsburgh poets are followed by an Open Mic. $5 door charge; doors open at 10:30pm. (N.b.: the last 54C bus leaves Allegheny Center at 1:12 AM.)

Sunday August 30th at 2:00pm: The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (Main library in Oakland) holds its weekly Sunday Poetry and Reading Series, featuring Chuck Lanigan’s presentation of fiction and oral history: To Be of Use: Stories of Labor and Identity in Southwestern PA. Free.

Sunday night, August 30th: The fabulous Typewriter Girls Cabaret will feature the fabulous Gist Street hosts as readers: poet Nancy Krygowski and fictionist Sherrie Flick with her new novel, Reconsidering Happiness. Poet Sandra Beasley, musician Steve Pellegrino, burlesque act The Bridge City Bombshells, and much more will round out the show. Howler’s Café in Bloomfield. Doors at 7:00pm, show at 8:00pm, $5.00 cover. See more info here.

Tuesday evening, September 1st: Outrageous blogger Maddox will be in town signing his book of “fratire,” called The Alphabet of Manliness. 6:00pm at Borders Eastside on Centre Avenue near Highland (aka Penn Circle South).

Second Elizabeth released

Full disclosure - Karen Lillis is one of Pittsburgh Arts - Digging Pitt contributors. We are ever so happy for her! The following is from Bill Driscoll's review --

Lillis, writing in the first person, tells the (perhaps at least semi-autobiographical) story of a young woman named Karen E. Lillis as she spends a summer working in a deli in small-town Charlottesville, Va., while reeling from the fallout from an unspecified personal trauma. Anxious, introverted and hard-pressed to communicate with others, including a gutsy co-worker named Beth, Karen longs to become the title character -- the more confident, more assertive person she used to be. "My meanings are trapped inside my body, I have a body which is a wall between the words I mean and the words I say," she says. From the City Paper - Read the article

The Second Elizabeth is available at Amazon.

If the Brillobox Were a Chapbook, This Might Be It

A Taste of River Water: An Anthology of Pittsburgh Poets is now available exclusively at Caliban Books on South Craig Street in Oakland. Contributors include Claire Donato, Jessica Fenlon, Kristofer Collins, Andy Mulkerin, anthology editor Ed Steck, Scott Silsbe (pictured above reading at the Six Gallery Press event at Mac’s Paperbacks in Cleveland), and numerous others from “the new Pittsburgh poetry.”

For only three bucks, check it out and see what you think.

New Monthly Series

LIQUID SUNDAYS is a new monthly gathering based in South Side Pittsburgh. One Sunday a month, they'll be showcasing local artists, bands, DJs, and writers, aiming to bring greater awareness and exposure to Pittsburgh talent. And the events are Free.

This Sunday, May 6th, the event will be held at the Rex Theater on Carson Street. For more info see their website: www.myspace.com/liquidsundays

This Spring, Cross-Pollinate!

Let’s hear it for cross-urban pollination! A posse of Pittsburgh’s writers, more specifically some local authors on Pittsburgh’s Six Gallery Press, are driving up to Cleveland this Saturday for a group reading at Mac’s Paperbacks, in Cleveland Heights. Writers such as New Yinzers Kris Collins and Scott Silsbe, “Pittsburgh’s Rimbaud” John Thomas Menesini, novelist Dana Killmeyer, outsider writer Che Elias, and myself, will be joining Youngstown’s Noah Cicero, Cleveland native David Hoenigman, and the notorious Kane X. Faucher for the literary onslaught.

A small press publisher from Columbus subsequently contacted me, asking was I reading in his city soon. And I thought, why wouldn’t I? Nevermind that I haven't had a driver's license in nine years, that's not stopping me from getting to Cleveland! I asked him if his press was interested in trading readings—we’d set one up for his people here, and he’d set one up for some of us there. I do think it always works best if, like John Morris has mentioned on this blog before, the readings themselves cross-pollinate local writers with the out-of-towners. I once booked myself a cross-country reading tour before I grasped that fact--booking myself solo readings the whole way. I don't recommend it! It’s not a good way to gather audiences for emerging artists of any genre. Face it: in the independent art world, audiences still flock to support their friends and acquaintances first, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Six Gallery Press Reading
May 5th 2007 at 5:00pm
Mac's Paperbacks
1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights

The Poetry of Homestead

You may have heard of John Edgar Wideman's trio of experimental novels, The Homewood Trilogy. Now comes the third in poet Robert Gibb's Homestead Trilogy. The Homestead native and former (third-generation) millworker reads and signs tonight from his latest poetry volume, World Over Water.
>>>>Thursday, April 19th, 7:00pm, Joseph-Beth Booksellers. 2705 E Carson Street, Southside. Free.
>>>>Read Bill O'Driscoll's write up here.