July 2015 was a historic month for renewing diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. The U.S. Department of State will officially reopen its embassy in Havana, Cuba on August 14, 2015. The importance of these events can be seen in this statement from Scott Morgenstern, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Latin American Studies: “Signified by the July, 2015 reopening of their respective embassies, the Cold War between the United States and Cuba has begun to ease, only 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The regularizing of relations will have profound affects on…

Elsie Henderson, the 101-year-old subject of The Fallingwater Cookbook, often takes the spotlight, but we caught up recently with the author of the book, Suzanne Martinson. Suzanne, a longtime food writer for the P-G, now resides in Washington state. She recently visited Pittsburgh, staying with friends in her old neighborhood of Swan Acres in the North Hills, and was looking for a restaurant for crabcakes, to have lunch with Elsie and cookbook photographer Linda Mitzel. Suzanne’s two grandchildren keep her busy, but she still manages to write a column for the Columbia River Reader in Longview, WA, near her home…

And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry John Hoerr “A fascinating account of USX’s turnabout, during the ’70s and ’80s, from the union’s staunchest ally to its most intransigent foe, and the steelworkers’ struggle to redefine their place in a divided industry.” —New York Times Book Review “An enormous labor of love, John Hoerr’s book comprehensively chronicles a national tragedy.” —The Nation A veteran reporter on American labor, John P. Hoerr analyzes the spectacular and tragic collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. And the Wolf Finally Came demonstrates how an obsolete and adversarial…

Two years after the publication of their book Allegheny City: A History of Pittsburgh’s North Side, co-authors Dan Rooney and Carol Peterson still hit the road from time to time for book signings. On July 15, the pair spoke with an enthusiastic crowd at the Allegheny City Historic Gallery on East Ohio Street in the North Side. Thanks to Willy James for the photos! From left to right, Bill Gandy, host of the event and PR man for ACHG; Dan Rooney; Carol Peterson.   Audience members get their copies of Allegheny City signed by the co-authors.

Jack Foley, longtime esteemed California radio host, recently interviewed Rachel Tzvia Back, translator of In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner. On KPFA radio’s “Cover to Cover,” Back tells Foley that she “felt completely possessed” reading Ruebner’s Hebrew verse, and contacted him saying she “must” translate his poems. In the Illuminated Dark was “a labor of love . . . a privilege and a delight,” she said. Hear the interview: here