Tag Archives: events

Women and Girls Foundation honors “Women in Media” — including me!

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(This is cross-posted on the Big Big Design blog.)

Women in Media event invitation graphic

Each year, the Women and Girls Foundation honors a group of women who are “engaged in dynamic work in exciting and challenging career fields in Southwestern Pennsylvania.” This year they are celebrating “Women in Media,” and I’m privileged to have been selected among the honorees.

The award ceremony will be part of the WGF annual gala on November 6 at the August Wilson Center for African-American Culture in Downtown Pittsburgh, from 6 – 10 p.m. It’s going to be a terrific occasion, emceed by Laverne Baker Hotep, Patrice King Brown, Eleanor Schano and Sally Wiggin.

WGF’s “Women in Media” event will feature a keynote address by award winning filmmaker and grandniece of media tycoon Walt Disney, Abigail Disney. Disney’s first film, the feature-length documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008, tells the inspirational story of the women of Liberia and their successful efforts to bring peace to their broken nation after decades of destructive civil war. Disney will give a keynote address at the awards ceremony on the power of media and women’s voices to bring peace to the world, and her film will be screened after the ceremony.

Trailer for Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Join us at the event! Get details, buy tickets, or become a sponsor at the WGF Women in Media event page.

I am thrilled to be part of this, and I want to congratulate the other honorees and Ginny Montanez, who has been selected for a Special Award of Distinction. I’m thankful to the event host committee for including me with these amazing women.

Find out more about the good work of the Women and Girls Foundation at their website.

Let’s start again and you can tell me all about what you did today

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Frightened Rabbit are a band from Scotland, and I love both their sound and the poetry of their lyrics.

Of their songs, this is (so far) my favorite:

They’re on tour now in Europe, coming to the US in October. They’ll be in Pittsburgh on November 2.

I’m buying some tickets, so let me know if you’d like to come along or meet us there. Such fun it will be!

Nerves of Steel: Stories of Moxie and Might — The Moth on tour in Pittsburgh, August 26

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The Moth is a live storytelling series. Sometimes the stories are true, and sometimes they are factual. Always they are interesting.

Here’s a sample.

The Moth will be in Pittsburgh in August, and I’m so looking forward to it.

American Shorts @WYEP presents The Moth in Pittsburgh

Nerves of Steel: Stories of Moxie and Might

Hosted by

Jessi Klein

Featuring stories by
George Dawes Green (founder of The Moth)
among others

Stories begin at 7pm
at New Hazlett Theater
Allegheny Square E.
Pittsburgh, PA

Tickets: $20, $25, reserved seating

http://www.pittsburghlectures.org/interior.php?pageID=238

If you can’t attend the event, they also have a podcast.

Liveblogging The Future of the Book – PCWS

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Starting around 8:20p tonight, the widget below will magically turn into a live scrolling thing, on which you’ll see my notes on “The Future of the Book,” a discussion between Sven Birkerts and Maud Newton hosted at Pitt and moderated by Cathy Day. UPDATE: Here’s a bit of background on this event.

You’ll be able to add your own notes and reactions, which I’ll endeavor to pull into the stream of info. Big fun. Please join me.

UPDATE: The tag for this event is #fobpitt.

Liveblogging The Future of the Book @ PCWS

The future of the book (take 2)

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UPDATE: Find the liveblog of the event at this newer post.

The much-anticipated but sadly postponed discussion on The Future of the Book has been rescheduled for April 1.

Sven Birkerts


Sven Birkerts
Maud Newton


Maud Newton

Essayist Sven Birkerts and Blogger Maud Newton to Discuss the Impact Of Technology on the Publishing Industry, April 1 at Pitt

PITTSBURGH- Imagining the possibilities that future technologies might have on the publishing industry will be the focus of a discussion with essayist Sven Birkerts and blogger Maud Newton. Titled “The Future of the Book,” this rescheduled event will be held at 8:30 p.m. April 1 in G-24 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. The event, part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series 2009-10 season, was postponed because of inclement weather.

The event will be moderated by Pitt creative writing professor Cathy Day, author of the short story collection The Circus In Winter (Harcourt, 2004) and the memoir Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love (Free Press, 2008).

The event is free and open to the public.

If you’re not able to attend — or if you do plan to attend and want to participate in a bit of backchannel discussion as it happens — I’m planning to liveblog this event here on this site. The liveblogging tech (from CoverItLive) lets everyone write in comments and questions, follow selected posts on Twitter, and generally participate in a variety of ways from any location. Nifty.


The future of the book

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UPDATE: Another casualty of Snowpocalypse 2010, the “Future of the Book” discussion has been postponed. With luck it will be rescheduled soon.

Next Thursday, the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series at Pitt’s Creative Writing program will hold an event of primo interest to me: a discussion titled “The Future of the Book,” featuring Sven Birkerts and Maud Newton, moderated by Cathy Day.

Sven Birkerts

Sven Birkerts
Maud Newton

Maud Newton

Sven Birkerts and Maud Newton
The Future of the Book: a discussion moderated by Cathy Day
8:30 pm, Thursday, Feb 11th
Frick Fine Arts Auditorium

Over the years, Maud Newton’s blog has become known among publishers, writers, and agents for its smart literary talk and her devotion to reading and writing.  She has been cited in a range of publications including New York magazine, The Scotsman, The Guardian, the New York Times, and Poets & Writers. Newton is particularly skilled at finding and posting links to lit bits that other sources miss, such as a previously untranslated Roberto Bolano story. Newton has written for The American Prospect, and contributed book reviews to The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, the New York Times Book Review, and Newsday.  Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared various journals including Narrative, Maisonneuve, and Swink.

Sven Birkerts is the author of several collections of essays, including The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (Faber and Faber, 2002). He has taught writing at Harvard University, Emerson College, Amherst College, and most recently at Mount Holyoke College. Presently, Birkerts is the Director of the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Birkerts reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Esquire, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications. His other works include An Artificial Wilderness: Essays on Twentieth Century Literature (William Morrow, 1987), The Electric Life: Essays on Modern Poetry (William Morrow, 1989) and My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time (Viking, 2002).

Sven Birkerts had an opinion piece in The Atlantic last year, “Resisting the Kindle,” so I presume he’ll be presenting the “e-books will destroy mankind and all that is good” point of view.

Maud Newton has many great qualifications and achievements, but I think of her as the blogger who inspired me to start blogging all the way back in 2003. I’m super-excited she’s coming to talk on this subject — or honestly, about anything at all. She posted on her blog last year about e-books: “When is a book not a book?“

The event is open to the public and free; see the full PCWS schedule here.

Whether you’re able to attend in person or not, I plan to liveblog the event, and I’d love for you to follow along and chime in. There will be a post on this site next Thursday with a CoverItLive widget where you can read my notes, make comments, add media (I think…), etc. Or you can tweet and tag your tweets with #futureofthebook and they’ll appear in the widget too. Very futuristic, no?

New play: Harry’s Friendly Service, at the Pittsburgh Public Theater

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There’s a new play in Pittsburgh that I want to see, but my schedule is conspiring against me. In case I can’t attend, I thought I’d at least let everyone else know about it — maybe if there’s a strong, positive response, the theater will extend it for a while until I can get a bit of free time.

The play is “Harry’s Friendly Service,” by Rob Zellers.

Zellers also wrote “The Chief,” a hit play about Art Rooney Sr., founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. This new play has other things to recommend it: an appealing cast, excellent production, great space (the O’Reilly Theatre) in which to enjoy it.

Plus the plot has resonance for me: set in the Rust Belt (Youngstown, Ohio), in 1977, when industrial layoffs were looming and small towns were in jeopardy. I grew up in that environment, when the major industries in my home town — steel and rail car manufacturing — were falling apart. In the current economic climate, it seems ever more important to look back on those years.

If you need a bit more temptation, here’s a little video promo the Public created:

Find more information, showtimes, and ticket info at the Pittsburgh Public Theater website.
And if you go, let me know what you thought of the show.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day this Friday, 3/20/2009

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This Friday, March 20, will be the second Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day, a tribute to Fred Rogers and a way to promote neighborliness throughout America.

To participate, wear a sweater on March 20. Doesn’t have to be a zippered cardigan — just has to be “special to you.”

You can also send a photo of yourself and your friends to Family Communications, Inc., the nonprofit Mr. Rogers founded, and they’ll post it on their website: www.fci.org/neighbor

You’ll find full details and photos from last year’s event there too.

And there’s more. This is from the press release:

As part of WYBMND, a number of Pittsburgh organizations have signed up to participate in the event by hosting activities to celebrate what it means to be a neighbor. On March 20, the Pittsburgh Zoo and the PPG Aquarium, The National Aviary, the Mattress Factory, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Photo Antiquities will offer free admission. Neighbors are also invited to visit Mr. McFeely and members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum and join community sweater drives sponsored by The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (at its Liberty Avenue and Hill District locations) and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (in the first floor lobby at 925 Liberty Ave.).

In addition, the movie My Tale of Two Cities, which encourages everyone to be a caring neighbor, will have several benefit screenings the week of March 15. The film is a comeback story about the real-life “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”.  Featuring Franco Harris and other famous Pittsburghers, screenwriter Carl Kurlander’s story documents the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” spirit that can be found across the country. The film will screen in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., and then, on March 20 in Pittsburgh at The Waterworks Cinema.

“What’s been so encouraging,” [Margy Whitmer of Family Communications, Inc.] says, “is the continued enthusiastic response from people all over the country. We’ve marked this date to give  organizations and institutions the opportunity to create an event that encourages the people in their communities to be caring neighbors.  We’re also hoping that individuals will connect one-on-one with their neighbors in caring ways and that it will become an annual national day of community service.”

For more information about “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Day (WYBMND) visit www.fci.org/neighbor.

This weekend: Bricolage’s “play-in-a-day” event

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From the email inbox, an announcement of a very cool event involving my friend Rick Schweikert and some of Pittsburgh finest theatre professionals:

B.U. S. 4 Bricolage Urban Scrawl
Bricolage presents our third annual Play-in-a-Day Series
MARCH 21ST 937 LIBERTY AVENUE FIRST FLOOR

Join Bricolage for a unique benefit to unveil a brand new season for 2009.

6 Playwrights, 6 Directors, 24 Actors, 24 Hours, 120 Seats.

We are back again with another incredible line-up of local artists risking their creative necks to write, direct, perform, and present 6 new plays in one day. Each writer will have 12 hours to write a 10-minute play inspired by a 90-minute journey on a city bus. The directors and actors will have the next 12 hours to rehearse, memorize and stage each play to debut that same evening exactly 24 hours after the first meeting.

Come see an exciting new line up of artists including:

WRITERS
Gab Cody, Robert Isenberg, Wali Jamal, Michael McGovern, Rick Schweikert, Robin Walsh.

DIRECTORS
Martin Giles, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Sheila McKenna, Anya Martin, John Shepard, David Whalen.

ACTORS
Eric Anderson, Nancy Bach, Karen Baum, Tyler Berube, Laura Lee Brautigam, Bridget Carey, Brian Czarneicki, George Dalzell, Don Digiulio, James Fitzgerald, Dave Flick, Tressa Glover, Lonzo Green, Daina Michelle Griffith, Mary Harvey, Chris Josephs, Kelly Marie McKenna, Robyne Parish, Joshua Elijah Reese, Rita Reis, Mark Clayton Southers, Genna Styles, and James Wong.

Enjoy cocktails and food provided by Penn Avenue Fish Market, Sonoma Grill, and Seviche. Bid on fabulous silent auction items such as sports, theatre, and film tickets, spa packages, and much, much more. Be witness to this exciting experiment in theatre and learn more about what Bricolage has in store for the coming year.

For a 7-minute video of past BUS events visit:
webbricolage.org/video_test.html

B.U.S. FARE: $40 cocktails and yummies
V.I.P. FARE: $75 private reception and Friday night actor selection party
Doors open at 7PM performance begins at 8PM.
Seating is limited. For tickets call 412-381-6999 or buy your tickets on-line at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/58505
To RSVP contact Tami at tami@webbricolage.org. For more information visit www.webbricolage.org

V.I.P. Fare – This ticket entitles the fare holder to cocktails, lite yummies and a front row seat to the intimate Friday Night Actor Selection Parade. This is rare treat for the VIP to get a behind the scenes look at the making of a 24 hour play event. This portion of the process is probably our favorite exchange. Choosing this fare will also give the VIP reserved seating for Saturday evenings BUS 4  event. Limited number of tickets available. Make your reservation today. Call 412-381-6999.

Supported in part by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust