Pittsburgh is home to an incredible range of authors, publishing professionals, literary event organizers and opinion leaders.
Our city nurtures well-known and emerging literary talent and is the inspiration for many works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In addition to the authors you may recognize, Littsburgh’s evolving literary roster features some of the passionate people who work behind the scenes to find local and national audiences for this work, and who help make Pittsburgh a haven for writers and readers.
If you would like to suggest yourself or someone you know (who currently lives in Pittsburgh) for inclusion in this directory, please email us with a biographical sketch, and any relevant website and social links.
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Katie Kurtzman
Biography
Katie T. Kurtzman, a graduate of The University of Pittsburgh’s Writing Program, has a decade of book publicity experience with top New York City-based publishing houses including Simon & Schuster, Penguin Young Readers, and Henry Holt. Most recently, she assumed a directorial role at literary powerhouse Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Active in the literary community, she is a member of the Brooklyn Book Festival publicity committee, an event volunteer for Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, and a consultant for The Creative Nonfiction Foundation. She now runs her own publicity business, KTK Publicity: http://www.KTKpublicity.com
John Lawson
Biography
John Lawson has taught creative and dramatic writing at Robert Morris University for many years. His poems have been published in a variety of print and online venues including Main Street Rag, Uppagus, and Vox Populi. He hosts the Literature Out Loud podcast, which has featured Pittsburgh poets such as Jan Beatty, Jim Daniels, Ed Orchestra, Joan Bauer, and many others.
Kelsey Leach
Biography
Kelsey Leach is a writer currently living in Pittsburgh, PA where she is an MFA candidate and Margaret Whitford Fellow at Chatham University. Her freelance journalism has been published by Salt Lake magazine and Salt Lake City Weekly, and her creative work has most recently appeared in apt literary magazine. She is a reader for Midway Journal and the co-curator of the Hay Street Reading Series and Chatham University’s Word Circus Reading Series. When she isn’t writing, she practices yoga, makes bagels, folds origami, and wanders around in Pittsburgh’s beautiful parks.
Sarah Leavens
Biography
Sarah Leavens’ poetry has appeared in The Diverse Arts Press, Weave, and So to Speak and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was the 2012-2013 Out of the Forge Writer-in-Residence in Braddock, PA. Leavens holds an MFA in Poetry & Nonfiction from Chatham University, where she organized the Word Circus reading series in collaboration with Most Wanted Fine Art, and a BFA in Oil Painting from Wittenberg University. (Paintings and handmade books are currently on display at the East End Book Exchange.) With a background in public arts initiatives and outreach, Leavens is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches professional writing. She also teaches creative writing at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, including the July 2015 travel writing retreat in Ambialet, France.
Heather McAdams
Biography
Heather McAdams is a Pittsburgh-based writer and editor. She holds a BA from Cornell University and owns Bridge and Tunnel Books in Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Joshua Lew McDermott
Biography
Joshua Lew McDermott is a Pittsburgher who originally grew up in Idaho and Utah. His first full poetry collection, Codex, was released in August, 2019 by Hand to Mouth Books, the latest publishing outfit of legendary Berkeley poet and publisher Charles Potts.
McDermott is the co-founder of the new small press/poetry website Line Rider Press, along with his twin sister and fellow poet Jessica Colleen McDermott. Line Rider launched in June 2019. The site spotlights a different poem/poet weekly and also publishes cultural commentary and essays. The press’s inaugural print publication We’re Dancing like Planets Now: The Selected Poems of M. Tyler Esplin is coming out in August, 2019.
McDermott is also a sociologist and activist who has been published by Jacobin Magazine online, the Hampton Institute, and in academic journals. He is the president of the African Socialist Movement International Support Committee, an organization which promotes equality, press freedoms, and democracy in the Mano River Region of West Africa. He is also the co-editor for Africanist Press, a progressive news and print publisher based in Sierra Leone.
Jenna McGuiggan
Biography
Jennifer (Jenna) McGuiggan co-authored Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: A Visual History (Clarkson Potter, 2019). Her work has appeared in the Rappahannock Review, New World Writing, Connotation Press, and online for Prairie Schooner and Brevity. Her essays have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology from Sundress Publications and been finalists in contests from Orison Books, Prime Number Magazine, and Hunger Mountain. She received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In addition to working as a freelance writer, she also teaches writing for the Creative Nonfiction Foundation and elsewhere. Find her online in The Word Cellar (http://www.thewordcellar.com).
Rachel Mennies
Biography
Rachel Mennies is the author of The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, winner of the 2013 Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry, and the chapbook No Silence in the Fields. Her poetry has appeared recently in Black Warrior Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Drunken Boat, The Journal, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere, and has been reprinted at Poetry Daily. Mennies teaches at Carnegie Mellon University and serves as a member of AGNI’s editorial staff.
Emily Mohn-Slate
Biography
Emily Mohn-Slate’s recent poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, Indiana Review, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Chatham University and Carnegie Mellon University. She is a graduate of Bennington College (MFA), Boston University (MA), and Colgate University (BA). She has been part of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops since 2009.
Dave Newman
Biography
Dave Newman is the author of five books, including The Poem Factory (White Gorilla Press, 2015), the novel Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), and the collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He works in chronic pain research, serving elders, and lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.
Bill O’Driscoll
Biography
Bill has been arts & entertainment editor at the newsweekly Pittsburgh City Paper since 2003. He reviews books, interviews authors, and also assigns and edits features and reviews. In 2015, his environmental column, “Green Light,” was named best column in a non-daily newspaper by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania. CP‘s book coverage is locally focused, emphasizing local or visiting authors, and a concentration on nonfiction, poetry, literary fiction and comics/graphic novels. Reach him at driscoll@pghcitypaper.com or 412-316-3342, x178.
Lisa Panepinto
Biography
Lisa Panepinto is the author of two poetry collections, On This Borrowed Bike (Three Rooms Press, 2013) and Island Dreams (Cabildo Press, 2009). Her writing has appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper, Planet Drum, Maintenant, The Accompanist, and more. She has served as a mentor and a senior companion with the United Way of Allegheny County and as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Penobscot Indian Nation, and received the President’s Volunteer Service Award. She is the poetry editor for Cabildo Quarterly, an online and print literary journal.
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