Fleeting Pages: A pop-up book emporium of reading, making, and window licking

A pop-up indie bookstore will be taking over the former Borders in East Liberty. For one month, beginning May 7, Fleeting Pages will fill the vacant space with independent and self-published  work.  They will also hold workshops and other events. 

Check out Fleeting Pages website here

Check them out on Facebook here

Session in Honor of Dave Demarest | Homestead: From Milltown to Malltown

Jim Daniels will be reading from his newest book, Homestead: From Milltown to Malltown, on Saturday,  April 16 at 1:30 p.m. at the Homestead Pump House.

In their new book From Milltown to Malltown, poets Jim Daniels and Jane McCafferty team up with photographer Charlee Brodsky to explore the steel-era ghosts of Homestead, Pa. Jim Daniels will read poems from the book in concert with the Brodsky photographs. Poet Peter Oresick will introduce the program, which will begin with a special tribute to Dave Demarest, whom we will honor for initiating this poetry reading series at the Pump House many years ago. A book signing follows.

Get more information on this event here.

Check out the Homestead Pump House here.  

The New Yinzer Presents:

Kristin Ross, Jen Michalski, Adam Robinson, and Kelli Stevens Kane will be reading at ModernFormations Gallery in Pittsburgh on Thursday, April 21 at 8 p.m.

Get more info on this event here and here.

Pendulum: Spring 2011

Pendulum, Pitt-Greensburg's literary magazine, will be having its launch party on Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in the Village Hall coffeehouse on campus. It is part of the Written/Spoken series. This event is free and open to the public.  More information to come!

Pitt-Greensburg's English Literature Capstones

Pitt-Greensburg's English Literature Capstone Presentations will be held on Thursday, April 21 at 5:30 PM in the Fireside Lounge, Chambers Hall. There will be six presentations, with a brief intermission and a question-and-answer session. The event will run until about 8 or 8:15 PM. Light refreshments will be provided.

Here is a preview of the presentations:

* Corey Florindi will investigate theatrical contexts, panopticism, and Irish identity reflected in the free indirect discourse of James Joyce's Dubliners.

* Sarah O'Neil will address the intertextual relationship of Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, and what it can tell us about the idealized image of the Romantic poet.

* Kate Smith will discuss the challenges of shifting subjectivities in Edgar Allan Poe's and Kate Chopin's short stories.

* Jessica Rendos will consider predetermined scripts, power, and the question of liberation in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

* Beth Smaligo will examine dialects, class status and physical bodies in transition in D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

* Brian Perry will explore the machinations of suspense through cognitive estrangement and split identities in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.

The capstone scholars will benefit from your comments and questions as they make the final revisions to their capstone papers.

Who is Matthew Newton?

Matthew Newton is a journalist documenting contemporary American life.   

Matthew Newton is a journalist whose writing has appeared in Spin, Good, Next American City, and Swindle, among other publications. He has reported on the decline of sampling in hip-hop; interviewed artists and musicians who survived Cambodia’s killing fields; and investigated the struggles of U.S. military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He has also appeared as a commentator on Austria’s FM4 radio and is editor of the nonfiction anthology Young & Reckless. He lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

His work speaks for itself.  He is awesome and I urge yinz to check him out here, here, and here too.  

Ligonier Valley Writers Conference July 16

If the promise of spring is amping up your creative juices, now’s the time to write. Start your novel, play, or other work today and you’ll have enough material to workshop at the Ligonier Valley Writers’ Conference.

The 24th annual conference will take place on Saturday, July 16, at the Rogers Center at St. Vincent College in Latrobe (back by popular demand). If you’d like a hardcopy of the conference brochure or have any questions, contact Judith Gallagher at jgallagher@LHTOT.com or (724) 593-7294.

Exceptional faculty members stand ready to help you grow your writing. Peter Oresick is teaching poetry, Scott Mastro fiction, Rebecca Godfrey nonfiction, and F. J. Hartland playwriting. F. J. will also be delivering the Thoburn Lecture.

If you register by June 10, you can enjoy early-bird pricing ($95 for LVW members; $110 for nonmembers for the full day). From June 10-July 1, the price is $105 for LVW members and $120 for nonmembers. Once again, LVW members will be able to sell their books at our book room during the conference. And to celebrate LVW’s 25th anniversary, we’ve reduced the price of a full-year membership, which includes not just discounts to most events but also our information-packed quarterly newsletter, to just $25.

Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, six scholarships are available for adult writers. The only criteria for the Ligonier Valley Writers’ Conference Scholarships are writing talent and financial need. Regarding need, let your conscience be your guide. Regarding writing ability, we ask that you submit a sample of your writing. Writers of all ages and backgrounds are welcome to apply.

LVW also invites students who will be high school seniors in the fall or who are graduating this year to apply for the Tina Thoburn Memorial Scholarship. Application forms for both LVWC and Thoburn scholarships are at www.LVWonline.org. The deadline for both is June 6.

Publication Party: Ligonier Valley Writers is kicking off the conference Friday night with a publication party for the 2011 edition of its literary magazine, The Loyalhanna Review. The party will be on July 15, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Latrobe Art Center on 819 Ligonier St. in Latrobe. Loyalhanna Review authors will read from their work. Beautiful paintings and photos (some of them reproduced in the magazine) will be on display in beautiful surroundings. Guests will have a chance to talk with the authors and artists whose work is featured in the magazine. The Loyalhanna Review has been published continuously since 1992.

For more information about any LVW events, workshops, publications, writing contests, and submission guidelines, please visit LVWonline.org.