Book events

“Original Kink”: A Reading and Conversation with Jubi Arriola-Headley
7-8 p.m. March 4

Jubi Arriola-Headley (he/him or they/them) is a Black queer poet, storyteller, and first-generation United Statesian who lives with his husband in South Florida and whose work explores themes of manhood, vulnerability, rage, tenderness and joy. He’s a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and his poems have been published with Ambit, Beloit Poetry Journal, Literary Hub, Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, The Nervous Breakdown, & elsewhere. Jubi’s debut collection of poems, “Original Kink,” is available now from Sibling Rivalry Press. This program is made possible through a grant by the University of Pittsburgh's Year of Engagement. Register here for the Zoom link

Book launch: “The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed” by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh
Noon-1:30 p.m. March 5

Countless communities across the world, from Flint, Mich., to the Standing Rock Reservation to the Gualcarque River in Honduras, have used the phrase “Water is Life” as a rallying cry against powerful corporations that value profits over the environment and the health of local communities. In 2002, a small group of citizens in El Salvador joined this global community of water defenders when representatives from multinational mining company Pac Rim appeared in their home province of Cabañas. This ignited a fight against corporate power that would last for over a decade. In “The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed,” Robin Broad and John Cavanagh tell the harrowing, inspiring saga of El Salvador’s fight — and historic victory — to save their water, and their communities. This event is being co-sponsored by: Department of Sociology, the Global Studies Center, Graduate School of Public Health, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water. Register for webinar link.

“Almost Too Tight to Love”: A Reading & Conversation with Savannah Sipple
7-8 p.m. March 11

Savannah Sipple is the author of “WWJD & Other Poems” (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019), which was included on the American Library Association's Over the Rainbow Recommended LGBTQ Reading List. It explores what it is to be a queer woman in Appalachia and is rooted in its culture and in her body. A writer from east Kentucky, her writing has recently been published in Go Magazine, Southern Cultures, Split This Rock, Salon, Appalachian Heritage, Waxwing, and other places. A professor, editor and writing mentor, Sipple resides in Lexington with her wife. This program is made possible through a grant by the University of Pittsburgh's Year of Engagement. Register here for the Zoom link.

New books

 “Writing Home: A Quaker Immigrant on the Ohio Frontier” (Bucknell University Press, 2020) by Donald Ulin, associate professor of English at Pitt–Bradford

Ulin has edited and annotated a book of letters from a 19th-century Quaker woman living on the Ohio frontier to her family in England, including Mary Howitt, one of the most popular writers of her day. The book covers five years of letters from Emma Alderson, ranging from messages of longing for her family written while still docked off Liverpool, England, to descriptions of ante-bellum Cincinnati, where she and her husband settled after a journey by canal to Pittsburgh and a posh steamship trip down the Ohio River. The letters, Ulin said, describe in depth many of the experiences of immigrants at the time — a two-month voyage by sailing ship, the challenges of winter, first impressions of a new land and people, the trials of freed and runaway slaves, Shaker life, rich landscapes, and much more.