Book events
Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series: Joshua Bennett
7:30 p.m. Feb. 21, Frick Fine Arts auditorium
Bennett is the author of “The Sobbing School,” which was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work–Poetry.
Literature Over Lunch: Cameron Barnett reads from his poetry collection, “The Drowning Boy's Guide to Water”
Noon-1 p.m. Feb. 21, Cup & Chaucer, Hillman Library
“The Drowning Boy's Guide to Water” (winner of the 2017 Rising Writer Contest) explores the complexity of race and the body for a black man in today's America. Barnett earned his MFA in poetry at Pitt, where he was poetry editor for Hot Metal Bridge literary magazine and co-coordinator of the Pitt Speakeasy Reading Series.
Faculty Book Talk: Jeanne Marie Laskas on “To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger and Hope” (Penguin/Random House, 2018)
4:30-5:30 p.m. Feb. 27, Thornburgh Room, first floor, Hillman Library
Every day, President Obama received 10,000 letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read 10 of them before going to bed. In “To Obama,” Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. Read an interview with Laskas here.
“Literature for Nonhumans”: A Reading and Q&A with Gabriel Gudding
6-8 p.m. Feb. 26, 501 Cathedral of Learning
Gudding is the author of “Literature for Nonhumans” (Ahsahta Press, 2015), “Rhode Island Notebook” (Dalkey Archive, 2007) and “A Defense of Poetry” (Pitt Press, 2002). His essays and poems appear in Harper's Magazine, The Nation, Journal of the History of Ideas, Great American Prose Poems and Best American Poetry. He teaches in the creative writing and literature & cultural studies programs at Illinois State University.
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The University Times welcomes information about new books, journals, plays and musical compositions written or edited by faculty and staff.
Newly published works can be submitted through this link. Please keep the book descriptions short and accessible to a general audience.
Journals should be peer-reviewed. Self-published works will not be accepted. The listings also are restricted to complete works, because individual chapters, articles, works of art and poems would be too numerous.
We’ll also be highlighting some books and book talks with connections to Pitt.
If you have any questions, please contact editor Susan Jones at suejones@pitt.edu or 412-648-4294.