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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Celeste Gainey
Biography
Celeste Gainey’s first full-length collection of poetry, the GAFFER, was published in March 2015 by Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. Her chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), was runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize, established to recognize a chapbook of poetry by a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or queer writer with no previous book or chapbook publication. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been a guest on Prosody, the public radio show on NPR affiliate, WESA-FM, featuring the work of national writers.
Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in BLOOM, 5AM, Columbia Poetry Review, HEArt, Wild Apples, Adanna, Writers at Work, Madroad: The Breadline Press West Coast Anthology, and other publications. In addition to reading her work widely, Gainey has been a featured presenter, alongside poets Jan Beatty and Aaron Smith, at the 2012 Other Words Conference in St. Augustine, Florida, and a featured reader for BLOOM literary journal’s tenth anniversary celebration at the 2014 AWP Conference in Seattle.
In 1974, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted as a gaffer to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.). In addition to lighting dozens of documentaries, she worked for such programs as 60 Minutes, ABC Close-Up, and 20/20, as well as on feature films, most memorably Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, and The Wiz. She was an early member of New York Women in Film and Television, serving two terms as President, from 1983-1985.
Moving into the field of architecture, Gainey became a leading architectural lighting designer and consultant, operating her design studio, Gotham Light & Power Inc., in both New York City and Los Angeles, designing lighting systems for restaurants, offices, retail stores, museums, and residences here and abroad, including Dreamworks Records, Warner Bros., and the beloved Manhattan restaurants Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café. She has lectured extensively on lighting for the hospitality industry and received numerous lighting accolades, including two International Illumination Design Awards presented by the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America as well as the G.E. Edison Award of Merit.
Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Gainey holds a BFA in Film and Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University. After many years of living on both the west and east coasts, she now lives with her partner, the novelist and screenwriter Elise D’Haene, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Susan Hans O’Connor
Biography
Susan bought the Penguin Bookshop in 2014 after a long career in book publishing, and moved the shop to its current location at 417 Beaver Street.
Susan was previously an associate editor at Viking Penguin (penguins again!) and is excited to now hold the esteemed Penguin Bookshop in her loving hands.
Dave Harris
Biography
Dave Harris is a spoken word poet and playwright from West Philly. As a playwright, his plays have been featured at Philadelphia Young Playwrights, New Haven Arts and Humanities Co-Op High School, Yale Playwrights Festival, the Annual Festival of New Work, UMASS Amherst, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, and the Yale Repertory Theater. As a poet, his work has been published or is forthcoming in The Huffington Post, Button Poetry, Upworthy, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Adroit Journal, The New Journal, Blueshift Journal, Freeze Ray Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly and The Misanthropy, amongst others. He is one of the winners of Write Bloody Publishing’s 2016 Book Contest, and his debut collection will be published in 2017.
Whitney Hayes
Biography
Whitney Hayes is a Virginia native living in Pittsburgh, where she received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Chatham University. Her work has appeared in Under the Gum Tree and Word Riot, and more recently online at RandomNerds.com. She is passionate about social justice work and has been an instructor for Words Without Walls, a program that brings creative writing to men and women in the Allegheny County Jail. Hayes is a co-curator for a new monthly literary event, the Hay Street Reading Series. She is currently writing short films, essays, and the odd sex poem.
Dan Hensley
Biography
As Adult Programming Coordinator for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Dan Hensley oversees the strategy and development of a wide range of programs in all of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 19 locations across the city, including an ever-increasing slate of author programs. Dan loves hearing from authors, publicists, and organizations who are interested in connecting with the Library’s community of readers.
Reach him at:
CLP Programs and Partnerships Office: 412-922-0063
Email: hensleyd@carnegielibrary.org
Bob Hoover
Biography
Bob Hoover retired as the book editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2011 after reviewing maybe 500 books, writing at least 500 columns, author interviews and profiles and an ungodly amount of news coverage about local writers, the publishing business and Pittsburgh history and art. He continues to write book reviews for a variety of publications local and national while working on a book about the history of journalism in Pittsburgh (it’s not pretty). He blogs about books, local readings, national topics and Pittsburgh theater at: http://www.bobsburgh.com.
Charlie Humphrey
Biography
Charlie Humphrey was Executive Director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers from 1992 to 2016. Pittsburgh Filmmakers is one of the oldest and largest media arts centers in the United States. Before joining Filmmakers, Humphrey was editor and publisher of In Pittsburgh, an alternative weekly paper. Prior to that he was a public radio producer and announcer, and still does occasional voiceover work for film and other media.
In addition to his role at Filmmakers, Humphrey was Executive Director of Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, assuming the dual positions after the Center closed amid a financial crisis in August of 2004, and publisher of the on-line investigative web site PublicSource. Filmmakers and the Center for the Arts are now legally merged.
Humphrey sits on the board of Directors of the Quantum Theater, the New Hazlett Theater and The Ellis School. He is a past president of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and past chair of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Alliance, an organization he helped to form. Over the last decade he has been on the boards of Silver Eye Center for Photography, The Andy Warhol Museum, WESA, The Mattress Factory, funding panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Heinz Family Foundation and the Heinz Endowments’ Small Arts Initiative and the Fisher Fund of the Pittsburgh Foundation.
Humphrey graduated from Whitman College in 1981 with a degree in philosophy.
Dan Iddings
Biography
Dan Iddings is the owner of Classic Lines books and more in Squirrel Hill. A bibliophile all his life, Dan opened Classic Lines in October 2014. Classic Lines is the only general purpose bookstore in Pittsburgh. Although Classic Lines sells both new and used books, Dan knew there was a definite need for a bookstore that focuses on selling new titles. Classic Lines stocks over 10,000 titles for adults, young adults and children. It has the largest selection of new fiction, children’s, biography, history, music, art, cooking, gay and lesbian, poetry, religion and more in Pittsburgh. We are constantly expanding our local author and locally published sections. The store hosts numerous author events and poetry and prose readings each month. Classic Lines is also proud to be the official bookseller for Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures 2014/2015 season. Find Classic Lines on Facebook here.
James Croal Jackson
Biography
James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. He has three chapbooks: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022), Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021), and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights, 2017). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, PA.
James Croal Jackson (he/him/his) is a Filipino-American poet born in Akron, Ohio. After graduating from Baldwin Wallace University with degrees in Film Studies and Creative Writing, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in the film and television industry. Living in his Ford Fiesta near the ocean, James rediscovered his love for poetry, and has since been published in hundreds of literary magazines including Hobart, The Indianapolis Review, Rust+Moth, Whale Road Review, and Columbia Journal. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022), Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021), and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). He founded the journal The Mantle Poetry in 2017.
In 2015, he embarked on a long road trip, working various food delivery jobs and online crowdsource gigs to stay afloat. Thirty-seven states in, he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he dove headfirst into the city’s robust poetry community, winning the 2016 William Redding Memorial Poetry Prize, sponsored by The Poetry Forum, the city’s longest running poetry series. He has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
In 2018, he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is once again working in film and television as a member of IATSE Local 161.
Email: JamesCroalJackson@gmail.com // twitter // instagram // facebook
Bryce Johle
Biography
Jenny Johnson
Biography
Jenny Johnson‘s first collection of poems, In Full Velvet, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books in 2017. She was a 2015 recipient of a Whiting Award, and she was recently awarded a 2016-2017 Hodder Fellowship at Princeton. Her poems appear in The Best American Poetry 2012, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, New England Review, Troubling the Line: Trans & Genderqueer Poetry & Poetics, and elsewhere. She won Beloit Poetry Journal’s 2011 Chad Walsh Poetry Prize. She has also received awards and scholarships from the Blue Mountain Center, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Currently, she is a Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh where she teaches writing and gender studies.
Lori Beth Jones
Biography
Lori Beth is the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Poetry Collective and a host of the weekly Steel City Slam. She has found community in poetry and its promotion on the local and national levels. A hostess at heart, her favorite events have been those she hosts in her home to support and celebrate traveling artists. Lori Beth also provides administrative support to Blue Sketch Press.
Ryan Kaune
Biography
Ryan Kaune is the managing editor of Autumn House Press. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she earned the Margaret Shannon Morton Fellowship for outstanding creative achievement, and served as a graduate teaching assistant and creative writing instructor for youth-based outreach programs. She is the former fiction editor of Ecotone magazine.
Stephen Knezovich
Biography
Stephen Knezovich has worked for the Creative Nonfiction Foundation in numerous capacities since 2008 and is currently the director of publicity and marketing for all of the foundation’s editorial and education programs, including the the quarterly magazine, Creative Nonfiction; the book imprint, In Fact Books; and the annual Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference. He earned an MFA in fiction from Eastern Washington University’s Inland Northwest Center for Writers; while there, he served as assistant managing editor of the literary journal Willow Springs. In addition to his work at CNF, he is a writer, collage artist, and filmmaker.
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
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