Pitt-Greensburg will feature readings by pair of Western Pennsylvania authors
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Trafford resident Dave Newman and Greene County native Sarah Elaine Smith will read from their works of fiction as part of the Written/Spoken Series on Thursday on the Pitt-Greensburg campus.
The program, which is free to the public, begins at 7 p.m. in Powers Hall, Room 100. A book sale and signing will be held after the readings.
Newman, who is an alumnus of the Pitt-Greensburg writing program, has written seven books, including his recent novel “East Pittsburgh Downlow,” published last year by J. New Books. A story of “people desperately trying to help themselves,” it revolves around Sellick Hart, a former welder turned community college professor who wants to write about the people he teaches.
His narrative intersects with a cast of struggling characters including waitresses, UPS employees, drug dealers, a reluctant Marine and a former collegiate wrestler and Pittsburgh Steelers guard who has just emerged from jail and turns to Hart for help.
Newman’s other books include “The Poem Factory” (White Gorilla Press ); the novels “Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children” and “Two Small Birds,” published by Writers Tribe Books; “Please Don’t Shoot Anyone Tonight” (World Parade Press ); and the collection “The Slaughterhouse Poems” (White Gorilla Press ).
Newman’s stories, essays and reviews have appeared in Gulf Stream, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Belt and Smokelong Quarterly.
Smith’s first novel, “Marilou Is Everywhere,” was published by Riverhead Books last year. The protagonist is a 14-year-old girl, Cindy, who lives with her two older brothers in a rural Pennsylvania house where utility service is intermittent and their mother is absent for long periods.
When an affluent teen goes missing, Cindy appropriates the girl’s life and experiences new foods, traditions and cultured surroundings — along with the love of a confused substitute mother who can’t grasp what has happened to her real daughter.
Smith holds master’s degrees in poetry and fiction and is a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Wallace fellowship. She also has penned “I Live in a Hut,” 2011 winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Books prize, and works that have appeared in such publications as FENCE, jubilat, Tin House and Gulf Coast.
The Written/Spoken Series is made possible through the university’s Office of Academic Affairs and the Creative and Professional Writing Program.
For more information, contact professor Lori Jakiela at loj@pitt.edu or 724-836-7481.