Pittsburgh is more than just a home for author Kathleen George: the city and its people are a source of inspiration. A native of Johnstown, George has lived in the city for many years, teaches theatre arts and creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, and has written several novels and short stories based in the Pittsburgh region, including The Johnstown Girls. Her latest, The Blues Walked In, is a period fiction novel set against the backdrop of Pittsburgh’s once-bustling Hill District. It’s 1936, and a nineteen year-old Lena Horne is walking to her father’s hotel in the Hill after a long tour with Nobel Sissel’s orchestra. Along the…

Our poet J. Allyn Rosser, author of Mimi’s Trapeze, muses about the rarity of seeing someone “unwired” on the Ohio University campus where she teaches, or so it seemed. . . Gazebo Gazer A month ago I was walking across campus. It was an almost-spring morning in Ohio, crocuses just up, squirrels unkinking themselves, and the birds making slightly more enthusiastic noises than one hears in January or February. The air smelled clean. The sun was visible in the sky, but pacing itself, rationing its rays – you could almost number them – supplying the faintest suggestion of warmth. I…

Florida poet Barbara Hamby, who has published three books with the Pitt Poetry series, is known for cooking up delicious verse. Poet Laureate Billy Collins described one of her collections as offering “a generous helping of poems so crackling with references and busy with verbal energy you might feel them buzzing in your hands.” It turns out that one of Hamby’s other passions is soup! “I love soup. It is the ultimate comfort food,” she said. Hamby usually has a freezer full of several different kinds, and enjoys trying new recipes.” Most of my soups are easy, and many are…

Pitt poet Charles Harper Webb, author of Brain Camp, has some rather controversial advice for today’s poets, and claims he can help them become better at their craft and sell more books! So, Publishers Weekly gave him a soapbox. A Cure for What Ails Poetry A poet argues that more accessible poems will lead to broader interest in poetry—and more sales By Charles Webb | Apr 03, 2015 Featured on Publishers Weekly Soapbox It’s no secret that the main audience for poetry is other poets. If you want to slow or even stop a party conversation, ask, “What new poets are you…