AltWeeklies Wire
How to Land the Lead in Warhol's Only Playnew
Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla, "takes us on a journey from the birth of rock to the explosion of punk . . . with memorable detours through the sexual revolution, the women's liberation movement, and the Theater of the Ridiculous."
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Cherry Vanilla |
02-01-2011 |
Excerpts
Infinite Jester: Rediscovering a Road Trip With David Foster Wallacenew
In 1996, David Lipsky spent time alongside David Foster Wallace, then a brilliant young writer on a reluctant book tour for Infinite Jest. Now, their hours of recorded conversation -- interviews conducted in cars, planes, hotel rooms and Wallace's home -- are rendered vividly and mostly verbatim in Lipsky's new book.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Aaron Jentzen |
05-03-2010 |
Nonfiction
'Creative Nonfiction' Begins Life Anew as a Quarterly Magazinenew
At the recent relaunch party for Pittsburgh-based literary journal Creative Nonfiction as a quarterly magazine, editor Lee Gutkind showed he hasn't forgotten old insults to the genre he's strived to popularize.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
03-15-2010 |
Books
The Brother of One of Pittsburgh's Most Famous Authors Speaks Out From Behind Barsnew
Robert Wideman's story is better known than most. His brother, John Edgar Wideman, is a nationally renowned author. The elder brother wrote a book about Robert's struggles, Brothers and Keepers, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Matt Stroud |
03-15-2010 |
Books
Rebecca Skloot's Real-Life 'Medical Thriller' 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'new
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks seems to be a hit. Rebecca Skloot's nonfiction book about a woman whose cancer cells have served medical researchers for 60 years has spent weeks among Amazon.com's top-10 sellers.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Kathy M. Newman |
03-01-2010 |
Nonfiction
Barry Lopez on a Writer's Responsibility in a Time of Environmental Crisisnew
Every couple of years, Barry Lopez assigns himself a trip that he knows "will knock me over backwards." And it's not the sort of travel you might expect from the naturalist author of such classics as Of Wolves and Men and Arctic Dreams.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
02-08-2010 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
John Hoerr Returns to the Steel-Making McKeesport of His Youth in His First Novelnew
Unlike his first three books, Monongahela Dusk is a work of fiction. But readers will find plenty of familiar ground, from Hoerr's thoughts on how workers -- not just managers -- can make steel better; the ubiquity of gambling rackets in mill towns; and the red-baiting.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Kate Giammarise |
08-31-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'The Scramble for Africa' Argues that Western Activists Have Darfur All Wrongnew
Steven Fake and Kevin Funk agree: When it comes to Darfur, even people who share their leftist politics mostly don't get it.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
11-11-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Lawrence C. Connolly Crossbreeds Crime Thriller and Fantasy Tale in Debut Novelnew
In Veins, the interweaving of nature's dark beauty and the destructive majesty of heavy industry informs the story's crossbreeding of crime thriller with fantasy with special potency.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
10-28-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Lawrence C. Connolly, Veins
Author Nancy Nichols' New Book Looks For the Man-made Causes of Cancernew
Her insights about survivorship are among the more provocative aspects of her new book, Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town's Toxic Legacy, in which she argues that instead of fixating on miracle cures, we should look harder at potential man-made causes of cancer.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
09-29-2008 |
Nonfiction
'What Happened to Anna K.' Reimagines Tolstoy's Heroine in Contemporary Queensnew
Irina Reyn, who teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, has taken the plot of Anna Karenina, based it in Queens, and turned it into a considerably shorter novel very much dependent on its present-day setting.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Adam Colman |
09-08-2008 |
Fiction
Leslie Anne Mcilroy's 'Liquid Like This' is Passionate, Well-crafted Versenew
Mcilroy uses formal care to set off raw emotion, insurgent thoughts, a lubricated imagination full of jazz horns, yanked-up skirts, lipstick traces, let-down lovers, open wounds and cold beers.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
08-04-2008 |
Poetry
Rick Rhodes Wrote the Book on Boating the Ohio River and Its Tributariesnew
The Ohio River is a practical guide for contemporary boaters, with detailed sketches of all eight rivers, dozens of black-and-white photos, and rosters of boat clubs, marinas and other dock sites -- even riverside restaurants.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
07-21-2008 |
Nonfiction
Flipping Through Mass-market Titles for Summer Readsnew
Teen novels ... celebrity biographies ... murder mysteries sold by the pound ... what goes on inside those lurid covers? We were by turns bemused, appalled, and sometimes even touched, by what we found. Includes reviews of Elton: The Biography, Beautiful Boy, Bratfest at Tiffany's, The Dark Tide, and more.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Staff |
07-21-2008 |
Books
Mark Doty Shies Away From the Title 'Political Poet'new
"Because when you say 'political poetry,' it sounds sort of dutiful, like, 'Oh, that's going to be work to read that,'" he says.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Paul Ruggiero |
06-30-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
