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1 week ago | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Sheila Carter-JonesBOA Editions, $19One sweltering evening last summer, in the back room of a Lawrenceville brewery, the poet Sheila Carter-Jones gave a particularly powerful reading. She introduced a selection of poems from her new book, “Every Hard Sweetness,” by telling the audience, “I’m from a small coal-mining town, and during the ’60s, my dad was beaten by cops and sent to a state hospital for the criminally insane.
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2 months ago | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
The International Poetry Forum returns after a 14-year hiatus to revive the Steel City’s role in showcasing renowned writers and other luminaries. The International Poetry Forum closed up shop in 2009. In its 43 years under the guidance of founder and director Samuel Hazo, the forum hosted readings by more than 800 poets and performers.
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2 months ago | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
The book is the latest project from Karen Lillis, who is also a bookseller and publisher.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Rachael Lippincott & Alyson DerrickSimon & Schuster, $19.99If basic cable programming has taught me anything, it’s that what people want most of all this time of year is a good rom-com. The proliferation of holiday-themed lovey-dovey flicks (I’m looking at you, Hallmark Channel) clearly scratches a particular itch in the zeitgeist. Meet-cutes, opposite attractions and will-they-or-won’t-theys just feel better when they’re wrapped up in cozy sweaters, cocoa and picturesque snow-covered hamlets.
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Nov 11, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Adam Charles HartOxford University Press, $39.95The filmmaker George A. Romero is a legend in the movie business as well as a beloved local fixture. Romero’s classic 1968 chiller “Night of the Living Dead” was a landmark for independent cinema as well as the horror genre. His follow-up “Dawn of the Dead,” shot almost entirely in the Monroeville Mall, was so successful that it put Pittsburgh on the map as The Zombie Capital of the World.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Clare BeamsDoubleday, $28Bodily autonomy, IVF and a woman’s right to choose are all highly charged and divisive topics in our current zero-sum political climate. These incredibly personal issues have sadly become public fodder, and deeply difficult decisions that should be given the respect of privacy have been weaponized and turned into talking points by disingenuous politicians and callous members of the media class.
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Colter HarperUniversity Press of Mississippi, $30Pittsburgh, perhaps more than other cities, feels like a loose confederation of neighborhoods rather than a distinct singularity. New Yorkers are unequivocal in their New York-ness. Chicagoans may divide themselves along the demilitarized zone between the Cubs and White Sox, but are united as denizens of Carl Sandburg’s City of the Big Shoulders.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Lynn EmanuelUniversity of Pittsburgh Press, $18Lynn Emanuel writes tightly coiled poems that writhe and click like a simmering swarm. There is rage and sadness in her work but also an undercurrent of desperate self-preservation. Her latest collection, “Transcript of the Disappearance, Exact and Diminishing,” revisits familiar territory for the poet.
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Jun 5, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
There’s a famous apocryphal story attributed to Ernest Hemingway. It goes like this — a couple of Papa’s writer friends bet him he could not write a story using only six words. Hemingway, who loved besting his pals, simply grinned and said, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” According to the sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, ol’ Hem pocketed a cool $10 from his stunned buddies. Not a bad haul in those days. Whether this ever actually happened is debatable. But it’s a good story.
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May 1, 2024 | 
pittsburghmagazine.com | Kristofer Collins
Kristofer Collins' selections include a warm and witty ode to all things bookish and a collection of essays. The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books returns this month for its third year. More than 60 authors and poets will be in attendance giving readings, participating in panel discussions and signing books. Storytimes should please youngsters while young adult readers can participate in workshops and create their own digital comics.
