Shannon Reed

2 weeks ago | post-gazette.com | Shannon Reed

I’ll put my cards on the table early here by confessing to being a Jennifer Weiner fan. The author shot to literary fame nearly 25 years ago with her first book, “Good in Bed,” and has gone on to write a barrage of best-sellers, which her latest, “The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits,” will surely join.

1 month ago | post-gazette.com | Shannon Reed

In my youthful days, I once convinced a friend who’d never seen a Star Wars movie to join me at “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” — the sixth of the series to be released — at a cinema in Brooklyn. In many ways, she was the ideal viewer, perhaps the only person in the theatre shocked by a big, if long-time coming, reveal at the end. But on our way out, she said, “So, now I need you to explain, uh, everything.”I felt something similar as I read Jesse Q.

Dec 22, 2024 | post-gazette.com | Shannon Reed

Growing up as the daughter of a Lutheran pastor in Johnstown, Pa., my world was seeped in the Christian Bible. Famously, when asked as a preschooler to say just one line as the “Head Angel” in the school Christmas pageant — something like “The baby is in the stable!” — I instead busted out the full “For unto you a child is born!” speech from the second chapter of Luke instead. That I knew it at 5 years old makes sense, because we really doubled-down on the Bible during Advent and Christmas.

Nov 12, 2024 | post-gazette.com | Shannon Reed

I teach at the University of Pittsburgh, where my students tend to be hard-working, cheerful, and deeply rooted in their family and culture. But not on the day after the election. On that day, they were scared. And angry. Especially, but not only, the young women. I’ve taught for 25 years now. I was in my classroom the week after 9/11, the month after a hurricane, the day after one of their classmates was shot and killed in front of our building.

Jun 4, 2024 | news.lee.net | Shannon Reed

I've been a reader for nearly all of my life, yet I always feel perplexed at the beginning of summer, when the term "beach reads" enters the chat. During the year's colder months, bookworms are envisioned as contemplative folk who drink hot tea and snuggle up in leather-bound chairs with the complete works of the Brontë sisters. But as summer begins, our tea is supposed to become iced, our chairs foldable, and the Brontës are exchanged for something light, romantic, fizzy and fun.