The first reading of the spring 2019 Written/Spoken series foretells great literary happenings when author/tarot expert Brittany Hailer visits Pitt-Greensburg Monday, February 4, at 7 p.m. in Village Hall.
Hailer will read from her new book, “Animal You’ll Surely Become” and offer a limited number of tarot readings during the reception that follows. The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing.
Pitt-Greensburg alumnus Kara Goughnour will join Hailer as a special guest reader, and Creative and Professional Writing majors Kaylee Stinebiser and Chelle Jackson will open at the event by reading from their work.
Hailer is a freelance reporter and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. She graduated with master’s degree in Fine Arts from Chatham University and taught creative writing classes at the Allegheny County Jail and Sojourner House as part of Chatham’s Words Without Walls program. She is the winner of multiple awards for her work, and her memoir and poetry collection “Animal You'll Surely Become” was released by Tolsun Books in October 2018.
Hailer has covered stories on drug addiction, race, development and motherhood. In 2017, for PublicSource, she wrote a 10-part series—“Voices Unlocked”—exploring how the US penal system has shaped the identities and lives of many Pittsburgh residents. That series also aired on local NPR news station 90.5 WESA. In 2018, she reported on the opioid crisis in Southwestern Pennsylvania for six months in a PublicSource series called "The Fix." She is a Justice Reporting Fellow for the 2018 John Jay/Langeloth Foundation Fellowship on “Reinventing Solitary Confinement.”
Kara Goughnour, a 2018 graduate of Pitt-Greensburg’s Creative and Professional Writing Program, is a queer poet and documentarian living in Pittsburgh. She is the recipient of the 2018 Gerald Stern Poetry Prize, and her work is published or forthcoming in “Pamplemousse Literary Journal,” “Oyster River Pages,” “Riggwelter Press,” “Little Rose Magazine,” “Southhampton Review” and many more. She is an editorial assistant for “Homology Lit,” an online literary magazine for people of color, those who exist within the LGBTQIA+ community, and those with disabilities. She also manages the blog for The Speakeasy Project, an online workshop series for writers of all ages and backgrounds.
Opening Readers
Chelle Jackson is a senior Writing and Psychology major. She started writing at six years old and has loved it ever since. Jackson mostly writes fiction, but occasionally delves into memoir. She is a writer for “The Insider” and has been published in “Pendulum.” She is also Secretary of Creative Writing Club.
Kaylee E. Stinebiser is a fiction writer, journalist, and blogger. She is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, where she is completing her Bachelor’s degree in Creative and Professional Writing. Her work has appeared in “The Insider,” where she serves as the Arts and Entertainment editor and a reporter, and in “Pendulum.” Stinebiser is also an editor and writer for Neighborhood Network Publishing’s “Laurel View Living” and “Lincoln Hills” Living publications. She has a forthcoming chapbook of short fiction, to be published in the Spring 2019, and intends to pursue a law career after graduation.
Pitt-Greensburg’s Written/Spoken Series is a reading series that brings nationally known poets and writers to the campus. Undergraduate student writers participate in readings and give performances of their own work. The series is sponsored by Pitt-Greensburg’s Creative & Professional Writing Program and the Office of Academic Affairs. For more information, please contact Professor Lori Jakiela, MFA, by phone at 724-836-7481 or email at loj@pitt.edu.