Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Join us on Wednesday, May 20th at Modern Formations (4919 Penn Avenue) for the next edition of the fantastic pot luck reading series The New Yinzer Presents! This is the last reading before our summer hiatus. (We'll back back again in August!)

Where: Modern Formations Gallery & Performance Space, 4919 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
Date: Wednesday, May 20th
Doors: 8:00 p.m.
Cover: $5 (or free with pot luck contribution)
BYOB

(And afterward, please follow Kris Collins and Scott Silsbe--as well as the rest of us Yinzers!--down the street to Brillobox for Sweet Jams!!)

Matt Newton-->: (Non-Fiction) Matthew Newton is a writer/reporter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His writing appears regularly in national and international magazines, newspapers, and alternative newsweeklies. He has reported on the decline of sampling in hip-hop for Spin; interviewed survivors of Cambodia’s killing fields for Swindle; and investigated how Rust Belt cities are using art as a catalyst for social and economic change for Next American City. In addition, he has appeared as a commentator on Austria’s FM4 radio; is editor of the nonfiction anthology Young & Reckless; and once worked an unseemly job that found him repacking expired fish.

<--- Margaret Bashaar: (Poetry) Margaret Bashaar is the co-editor of Weave Magazine and co-host of The Typewriter Girls. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous literary journals including Caketrain, The Pedestal Magazine, Boxcar Poetry Review, So to Speak, and Blue Earth Review. She also writesbook reviews for The Multicultural Review and for Weave Magazine's blog.

Mark Possanza-->: (Poetry) Mark Possanza lives and writes in Squirrel Hill. He published his first collection of poems, Atlas of Invention, in 2002, and hopes to publish a second collection, Word Count, in the fall 2009.
<--- Karl Hendricks: (Music) Karl Hendricks lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife, Megan, and their two daughters, Maeve and Nell. He is the author ofthe chapbook, Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back (Speed & Briscoe Books). He teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh and also works at Paul’s CDs. His band, the Karl Hendricks Trio (sometimes Rock Band), has released eight albums, most recently The World Says.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

TNY Presents is 1 year old today!!

Okay, so maybe we all look over 21, but we're young at heart, and celebrating our first birthday as a series!

So, drop those tax packets in the mail and come celebrate with us tonight at Modern Formations Gallery and Performance Space.

Have some birthday cake, listen to some excellent writers read from new work, and hear some great music.

8 p.m., 4919 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
Cover: $5 (or free with a pot luck dish!)
BYOB

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

In Pittsburgh City Paper (March 19, 2009)

The New Yinzer Presents
BY BILL O'DRISCOLL

If you can drop by a reading series almost at random and hear something really good, chances are that series is doing something right.

I'd heard that this monthly series, at Garfield's ModernFormations Gallery, hosted good stuff: It's three writers (mostly poetry and fiction), plus a short musical performance, plus a potluck option that waives the $5 entry fee if you bring something tasty.

But while the biggest name at the March 18 installment was Baltimore-based novelist Michael Kimball, I thought the highlight was a short story by Kelly Ramsey. I didn't catch the title, but it was one of those stories, not realistic but set in a universe slightly to the left of our own, whose matter is communicated not just by its narrative, but by its very premise.

The story described a woman having a phone conversation with her ex while occupying the roof of their building, where she had (somehow) relocated all of their furniture. The tension was in the counterpoint between the plain, almost mundane dialogue and the rising action, which involved various furnishing hurtling -- silently, and apparently of their own accord -- over the roof's edge.

Somewhat in the Donald Barthelme vein, I thought -- a nice combination of surrealism and deadpan humor, with a poetic emotional undercurrent. Ramsey, an MFA student at Pitt, is a former co-editor of Hot Metal Bridge literary mag.

New Yinzer Presents is one of many events, regularly scheduled and otherwise, hosted by this online magazine (www.newyinzer.com) that for seven years has been a valuable part of the local literary scene. March was "Small Press Month," with wares for sale in the back from local literary entrepreneurs.

Contributors and organizers on-hand included Jessica Fenlon, Kristofer Collins and Scott Silsbe. Kimball read from his new novel Dear Everybody (Alma Books), structured as a series of undelivered letters written from childhood on by a depressive weatherman who committed suicide. The music was by Colin Baxter and his combo. (Full disclosure: two CP types were also implicated, including staffer Andy Mulkerin, who read his poetry, and art reviewer Savannah Guz, who MC'd.)

The seating includes couches, and there's art on the walls. It's a fair bet for the fourth Wednesday night of the month.