WANA LIVE! Reading Series

Brittany Hailer is a freelance reporter and educator based in Pittsburgh. For her stories of people affected by the opioid epidemic, she received a 2019 Golden Quill Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania and a Robert L. Vann Award of Excellence for investigative/enterprise reporting from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation. Her memoir and poetry collection "Animal You'll Surely Become" was published by Tolsun Books in 2018. Brittany has taught creative writing classes at the Allegheny County Jail and Sojourner House as part of Chatham’s Words Without Walls program and now teaches creative writing and journalism at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work as appeared in NPR, Fairy Tale Review, Hobart, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.

Jeremy is the author of Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland (Blair, 2014), which won the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year in nonfiction and was awarded gold in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Awards in memoir. His essays have been named Notable in Best American Essays and published in Oxford American, The Iowa Review, and Brevity, among others. Jeremy earned his MFA from the University of Iowa and is an associate professor of English at Western Carolina University, in his native North Carolina. He also serves as the series co-editor for In Place: a literary nonfiction book series from Vandalia Press, the creative imprint of WVU Press.

John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Domestic Garden (2015), Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), and Lives of Water (2003), all with Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, anthologies, and textbooks, including New York Magazine, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Southern Review, Christian Science Monitor, Southeast Review, The Laurel Review, The Florida Review, West Branch, The Literary Review, Blackbird, New York Magazine, Making Poems: 40 Poems with Commentary by the Poets (State U of New York P, 2010), September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond (Etruscan Press, 2002), Blooming through the Ashes: An International Anthology on Violence and the Human Spirit (Rutgers UP, 2008), Chance of a Ghost (Helicon Nine Editions, 2005), Poetry Calendar (Alhambra Publishing, 2006-2012), Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina (U of North Carolina P, 2013), A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry (U of Akron P, 2012), The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody Publishing, 2013), The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VII: North Carolina (Texas Review Press, 2014), Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia (West Virginia UP, 2017), and A Compendium of Kisses (Terrapin Books, 2019).

With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P, 2012). His essays, interviews, and essay/reviews appear in such journals as Arts & Letters, Southeast Review, Chelsea, Bellingham Review, Pleiades, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, The Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, Waccamaw, North Carolina Literary Review, and Kestrel, where he served as Poetry editor for eleven years. He currently serves as Advisory Editor to the cultural journal Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, where he edits “A Poetry Congeries.” He also serves on the Advisory Board for Backbone Press, specializing in the publication and promotion of marginalized voices.

Among his honors are the ECU 5-Year Achievement for Research & Creative Activity Award, the ECU Department of English Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity, an Individual Artist Grant from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, grants from the New York Foundation on the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, and the North Carolina Community Council for the Arts, and Residency Fellowships from The Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, the Elizabeth Bishop House, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He was named and served two terms as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the Eastern Region of North Carolina, and Domestic Garden received the Brockman—Campbell Award for the best collection of poetry by a North Carolinian in 2015.

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES, focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church and is a finalist for the National Book Award. Deesha is also the co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce, written in collaboration with her ex-husband. Her work has been listed as Notable in the Best American Essays series, and her writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Brevity, dead housekeeping, Apogee Journal, Catapult, Harvard Review, ESPN’s The Undefeated, The Baltimore Review, TueNight, Ebony and Bitch magazines, and various anthologies. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and a past Pushcart Prize nominee for essay writing in Full Grown People.

Clarion University professors, Dr. Marc Sanko and Dr. Jeffrey Diamond, recently launched the podcast “Stories from the Pennsylvania Wilds,” where they showcase these important pieces of history from across the Wilds region. Join us as they talk about the genesis of their show and what's coming up next.

Taylor Grieshober is the author of the short story collection Off Days, published by Low Ghost Press in 2019. Her most recent story was awarded third place in the Masters Review Winter Short Story Contest, judged by Kimberly King Parsons. Her other work has appeared in Hobart and Gulf Stream, among others. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Oregon State University. She lives in Pittsburgh, where she is a high school fiction teacher.

Bart Solarczyk lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his daughter, dog and cat. His poems have recently appeared in Big Hammer, Live Nude Poems, Rasputin, Winedrunk Sidewalk and River Dog. He appears in G.A.S. #3, a Gypsy Art Show video that can be viewed on YouTube, reading five of his poems. His book Tilted World is available from Low Ghost Press and on Amazon.

Michael Knost is a Bram Stoker Award®-winning editor and author of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and supernatural thrillers. He has written in various genres and helmed multiple anthologies. His Writers Workshop of Horror won the 2009 Bram Stoker Award® in England for superior achievement in non-fiction. His critically acclaimed Writers Workshop of Science Fiction & Fantasy is an Amazon #1 bestseller. Return of the Mothman, Barbers and Beauties, and Author’s Guide to Marketing with Teeth were all finalists for the Bram Stoker Award®.

Michael is the host of a new podcast called The Author’s Voice. He received the Horror Writers Association’s Silver Hammer Award in 2015 for his work as the organization’s mentorship chair. He also received the prestigious J.U.G. (Just Uncommonly Good) Award from West Virginia Writer’s Inc. His Return of the Mothman is currently being filmed as a film adaption. He has taught writing classes and workshops at several colleges, conventions, online, and currently resides in Chapmanville, West Virginia with his wife, daughter, and a zombie goldfish.

KRISTOFER COLLINS is the publisher at Low Ghost Press and the books editor at Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-host of the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series. Over the years, he created a literary name for himself with projects such as The New Yinzer and The Bridge Series. HIs latest book is THE RIVER IS ANOTHER KIND OF PRAYER: NEW & SELECTED POEMS. Collins lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their son Cassidy.

Chauna Craig is professor of Creative Writing at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she has also served as Director of Women Studies and Dean’s Associate of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her writing has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Fourth Genre, Superstition Review, Smokelong Quarterly and elsewhere. Her work has been designated a finalist in Terrain.org’s Environmental Writing contest, a Notable Essay in Best American Essays, and an honorable mention in the Pushcart Prize series. She has received fellowships to Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her short story collection, The Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms, was published in 2016.

Marc Harshman is the new poet laureate of West Virginia. A full-length collection of poems, GREEN-SILVER AND SILENT, has just been published by Bottom Dog Press. Four chapbooks of poems include ROSE OF SHARON, Mad River Press, MA. Periodical publications include Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, The Progressive, Appalachian Heritage, and Fourteen Hills. Poems have been anthologized by Kent State University, the University of Iowa, University of Georgia, and the University of Arizona. Short prose works have recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His eleven children’s books include THE STORM, a Smithsonian Notable Book. His children's books have also been published in Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Danish, and Swedish. He has three new children’s titles forthcoming. He lives in Wheeling, West Virginia and holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale University Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh.