Littsburgh on KDKA! + Writer-in-Residencies, Jazz Poetry Month, Children's Book Fest, Excerpts, Interviews & more!
If you were tuned into KDKA last week, you might have seen Littsburgh on Talk Pittsburgh!
We’re going to be dropping in once a month to talk books and Pittsburgh (and Pittsburgh books) for the Talk Pittsburgh Book Club, and we’re really excited to be celebrating literary Pittsburgh in a whole new medium . . . so watch this space!
The first Talk Pittsburgh Book Club selection is Idra Novey’s Take What You Need (set in Western, PA) and you can read our Q&A with Novey right here on Littsburgh.
Back on the site, we’re still adding listings to Littsburgh’s event calendar almost every day and we have a bunch of new posts and features to browse.
So if you haven’t visited lately, check us out!
Yours in books,
The Littsburgh Crew
Littburgh on KDKA to Help Launch the Talk Pittsburgh Book Club!
“Littsburgh’s co-founder Rachel Ekstrom Courage (also a literary agent and author) joined Heather Abraham on Talk Pittsburgh this week to talk about Pittsburgh’s literary community and help launch the Talk Pittsburgh Book Club…”
City of Asylum Jazz Poetry Month Returns for 19th Year this May!
“Beginning Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 7:00 PM at Alphabet City, City of Asylum presents the 19th annual celebration of Jazz Poetry. Jazz Poetry Month 2023 is a one-of-a-kind festival which includes 9 concerts featuring 50+ performers as well as several jazz and poetry workshops. Jazz Poetry Month programs are free and take place throughout the month of May at City of Asylum’s Alphabet City venue in the North Side…”
Start Reading Steel City: A Story of Pittsburgh by William J. Miller, Jr.
“This is not a gilded age novel. It’s a novel of the smoke and grit that was the pride of the booming city of Pittsburgh. Steel City takes you to another time and another world that is distant but familiar…”
City Books Writer-in-Residence Deadline: April 30th!
“The City Books Writer’s Residency offers flexible access to a comfortable, creative space within Pittsburgh’s oldest bookstore for adult writers to develop new writing or to advance existing work-in-progress…”
Q&A: Gregory Laski (co-editor of Democracies in America: Keywords for the Nineteenth Century and Today)
“What’s the Pittsburgh connection? There are a few! I grew up in the region and still call Pittsburgh home, even as work and school have taken me away. But I’m in Pittsburgh a lot, and even spent a wonderful year as visiting professor at CMU, developing a community-engaged writing course. The book took shape during that year. And the final product features work by two Pitt professors Jean Carr, who has a fascinating take on the meaning of moderation, and Alaina Roberts, who narrates the story of Native American settlement after the Civil War.”
We can’t fit the entire literary calendar in this email, so be sure to visit Littsburgh.com for even more events!
Q&A + Excerpt: Sheridan Jean (author of Slow Simmer – set in Sewickley!)
“Sheridan Jeane’s newest novel, Slow Simmer, is a fun, feel-good romcom novel that will keep readers turning the page until the end. Available now, Slow Simmer reveals Jeane’s love of Pittsburgh, its film industry, and superhero nerd culture. It’s full of characters who jump off the page and is set in the local community of Sewickley!”
14th Annual Children’s Book Festival Celebrates Reading and the Arts
“We’re celebrating the 14th year of the festival with the theme Bedtime Stories. Children are encouraged to attend the festival dressed in their favorite pajamas. The Children’s Book Festival provides children in grades PreK – 6 and their families with a FREE, interactive, and engaging literary experience that inspires in children a love for books, encourages parents to read to their little ones, and gives families access to affordable new and used books to build home libraries of their own...”
In Progress: Pitt-Greensburg Writers Fest to Feature Human Writers (and Pittsburgh Super Human Rick Sebak)!
“If ChatGPT and other assorted bots make you worry about the future of literature, Pitt-Greensburg’s Writers Festival should prove that humans are not going gentle into that good night. The festival, which runs from Monday, April 10 through Friday, April 14, features such luminaries as award-winning writer Jane McCafferty, acclaimed poets Aaron Smith and Nancy Krygowski, PBS documentarian Rick Sebak, and more…”