Written/Spoken Reading Series welcomes Pittsburgh publishers and award-winning writers

Reader collageInterested in learning more about publishing, performing, and how books make it to print?

Pitt-Greensburg’s Written/Spoken Series opens Tuesday, February 4, with a showcase of award-winning writers and the editors who published their work.

Pittsburgh-based Low Ghost press authors Taylor Grieshober and Bart Solarczyk, and special guest spoken-word artist Andrea Laurion, will read and talk about the path to publishing and the literary scene in Pittsburgh beginning at 7 p.m. in the Hempfield Room. Low Ghost press editors Kristofer Collins and Scott Silsbe will be on hand to discuss their roles in selecting and publishing some of the area’s best poets and writers.

The readings, book signing, publishing discussion, and reception are all free and open to the public. Pitt-Greensburg writing majors Kaylee Stinebiser and Alexis Williams will open.

Taylor Grieshober’s debut story collection Off Days was published by Low Ghost Press in 2019. She was shortlisted for the Master's Review Winter Short Story Award, judged by Aimee Bender, and her fiction has appeared in many national and international journals, including most recently Hobart.  

Low Ghost also published Bart Solarczyk’s most recent book of poems, Tilted World, in 2019. For the past 37 years, Solarczyk, who grew up on Pittsburgh’s South Side and now lives in the North Hills, has published poems in a variety of publications, most recently in Big Hammer, The Razor’s Wine, Duane’s PoeTree & The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His most recent chapbook, Right Direction (2016), was published by Lilliput Review as part of the Modest Proposal chapbook series.

Andrea Laurion is a writer and performer from Pittsburgh. Her essays and humor writing have been published in Slate, The Washington Post, Shondaland, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Rumpus, The Hairpin, and The Toast, among others. As an improviser, she performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City, CIC Theater in Chicago, and various stages around Pittsburgh. From 2013 to 2016, she was the host and producer of For Serious, a humor reading series. In past lives, she has worked as an obituary writer, a lunch lady, a children's birthday party hostess, a wedding photographer's assistant, and as an undercover investigator (kind of). She is a big fan of libraries, karaoke, gin & tonics, drinking coffee on her porch, and seeing where the night takes her. 

The editors of Low Ghost, Kristofer Collins and Scott Silsbe, will talk about the press, their work as writers and as editors, and will offer Low Ghost and other books for sale and signing. 

The Pitt-Greensburg Written/Spoken Series is made possible through funds from the Office of Academic Affairs and the Pitt-Greensburg Creative and Professional Writing Program.

For more information, contact Professor Lori Jakiela at loj@pitt.edu or 724-836-7481.

Publication Date

Wednesday, January 29, 2020 - 16:15