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Book News: Literary calendar gets even more crowded
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Jan Beatty -- Her third poetry collection is due next month.
Best-Laid Plans Department


Our sincere efforts to produce an inclusive calendar of book and author events for the month proved to be sincere but not inclusive.

Here are more additions to this very active month:

Tomorrow: Ellen White, who worked as a publicist and writer for the Carnegie Museum of Art in the 1990s, returns to promote her new book, "Simply Irresistible: Unleash Your Inner Siren and Mesmerize Men With Help From the Most Famous and Infamous Women in History" (Running Press, $12.95).

White will be at the Barnes & Noble outlet, Waterworks Mall near Aspinwall, at 1:30 p.m.

Friday: The Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center in Johnstown presents readings by poet P.K. Harmon and writer Sarah Strickley.

Harmon is a visiting writing instructor at the Johnstown campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Strickley is a Truman Capote fellow at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop.

Readings are at 7:30 p.m. at the center, 411 Third Ave., Johnstown and are free.

Feb. 26: Eve Ensler, creator of "The Vagina Monologues" stage success, has turned the play into a book and will be stopping at two nearby universities to promote it.

She has stops planned at both Clarion and Slippery Rock state universities of Pennsylvania. Details remain murky, reports her publisher, Ballantine Books, but will be clarified soon, it promises.

Looking ahead


March 1: Anne Lamott, author of best sellers on her path to Christianity, joins the Renaissance Choir of Pittsburgh at Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum and Memorial, Oakland at 7 p.m. in a lecture sponsored by the Community of Reconciliation Church, Oakland, at 7 p.m. Details: 412-682-2751.

March 24-28: The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg Writers Festival convenes at the regional campus for three days of readings by such authors as Steve Almond, Jim Daniels, Jane McCafferty, Ed Ochester and Charlie Brodsky.

Details: 724-836-7481.

Books to watch for


Jennifer Haigh, Cambria County native and author of the novels "Baker Towers" and "Mrs. Kimble," publishes her third book June 10. "The Condition" (Harper) concerns the lives and loves of a New England family.

Poet Jan Beatty, who teaches at Carlow University, delivers her third poetry collection, "Red Sugar," next month from University of Pittsburgh Press. She is also co-host of the literary radio show, "Prosody," on WYEP-FM.

Dinty Moore has stewed up an essay collection from the University of Nebraska Press' American Lives Series, "Between Panic and Desire." The collection, priced at $24.95, will appear next month. Moore was on the staff of the Altoona branch of Penn State University before moving to Ohio University.

In memoriam


Services were held at the Homewood A.M.E. Zion Church yesterday for Bette A. Wideman, mother of John Edgar Wideman. Mrs. Wideman died Feb. 7. She was often in the audience when her son held readings in his hometown and is also mentioned frequently in his just-published novel, "Fanon."


Correction/Clarification: (Published Feb. 13, 2008) The March 1 lecture by Anne Lamott is sponsored by the Community of Reconciliation Church, Oakland, but will be held at 7 p.m. at Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum and Memorial, Oakland. This item as originally published Feb. 12, 2008 listed an incorrect location.
Post-Gazette book editor Bob Hoover can be reached at bhoover@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1634.
First published on February 12, 2008 at 12:00 am
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