Free Association Reading Series presented by City of Asylum

(run time 60-min) *please note the 5:00 PM start time* Streamed on City of Asylum’s Virtual Channel.

An intimate evening of live readings with exceptional Pittsburgh writers co-curated by Pat Hart and Marc Nieson of the Free Association Reading Series.

Featured Writers:

Leah Brennan teaches World Literature and Poetics of Social Justice at The Ellis School. She received her MFA from Chatham University, and her work, which includes poetry, fiction, essays, and French-English translations, has appeared or is forthcoming in print and online in journals such as Burrow Press Review, Fourth River, and Northeast Magazine. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Nicole Lourette received her MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University in 2015. Originally from Rochester, NY, she now resides in Pittsburgh, PA where she works as an event planner. An editor for Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, her work has been featured in IDK Magazine, Vagabond City, The Paragon Journal, and elsewhere.

Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia is a self-described “sancocho” of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists. Garcia is rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, conveying nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience, and he writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. His third poetry collection, ELEGIES (2020), is available through FlowerSong Press.

JESSE WELCH is a poet, father, and untalented juggler. He is the co-founder and host of the Nasty Slam, Pittsburgh’s head-to-head deathmatch slam. He has competed at the National Poetry Slam for Chicago, Seattle, and Pittsburgh. He has been performing his poetry since he was twelve years old and appears in the award-winning documentary Louder Than A Bomb.

Co-Curators:

Pat Hart writes plays, monologues, short stories, and novels. Hart has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.

Marc Nieson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and NYU Film School. Nieson teaches at Chatham University, edits The Fourth River, and is working on a new novel, HOUDINI’S HEIRS.

Founded in May of 2016, Free Association Reading Series is for established and emerging Pittsburgh writers of prose, poetry, and non-fiction. Not affiliated with any formal writing programs, FARS is ‘non denominational’ and draws writers from universities, workshops, and those toiling away alone in their garrets.