Featured Writers:

Sheila Squillante is the author of the poetry collection, Beautiful Nerve (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), and three chapbooks of poetry: In This Dream of My Father (Seven Kitchens, 2014), Women Who Pawn Their Jewelry (Finishing Line, 2012) and A Woman Traces the Shoreline (Dancing Girl, 2011). Recent work has appeared or will appear in places like Copper Nickel, North Dakota Quarterly, Indiana Review, Waxwing, Menacing Hedgeand River Teeth. She  teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Chatham University, where she edits The Fourth River, a journal of nature and place-based writing. From her dining room table, she edits the blog at Barrelhouse.

Brittany Hailer is a freelance reporter and educator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She taught creative writing classes at the Allegheny County Jail and Sojourner House as part of Chatham’s Words Without Walls program. She has won several awards for her creative work. She teaches creative writing at The University of Pittsburgh.

In 2018, she reported on the opioid crisis in South Western Pennsylvania for six months in a PublicSource series called “The Fix.”  Brittany has also covered stories on drug addiction, race, development and motherhood. Her memoir and poetry collection Animal You’ll Surely Become debuted in 2018.   An excerpt  exploring her father’s sexual abuse by a Catholic priest appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper a week after 300 accused priests listed in Pennsylvania report on Catholic Church sex abuse was released.

Pat Hart writes plays, monologues, short stories, and novels. Playwriting credits include “Book Wench” a one-act play, performed at the Strawberry One-Act Festival, 2015, New York, New York and Murderous, a 10-minute monologue, performed at Practice Monologamy, Carlow University (2015). Published short stories include “The Reader” Every Day Fiction (2018), “The Vigil,” The Writing Disorder (2015), “New Wife vs. Old Wife, a love story,” (2015) and “Dragon Boogers” novel excerpt (2016) in Voices in the Attic, and “Spider Ball,” Rune (2015). Pat is the founder of Free Association, a reading series for established and emerging writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction hosted by the City of Asylum in Pittsburgh.

Marissa Landrigan is the author of The Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Meat (Greystone Books, 2017), a memoir chronicling her journey from vegetarian to ethical omnivore. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in numerous journals, including The Atlantic, Creative Nonfiction, Salon, Guernica, Orion, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Diagram, South Loop Review, and others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Environment from Iowa State University, and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, where she teaches creative, digital, and professional writing.

Curators:

Pat Hart, co-curator
Marc Nieson, co-curator

Pat Hart writes plays, monologues, short stories, and novels. Playwriting credits include “Book Wench” a one-act play, performed at the Strawberry One-Act Festival, Summer 2015, New York, New York. Published short stories include “The Vigil,” The Writing Disorder (Fall 2015), “New Wife vs. Old Wife, a love story,” (2015) and “Dragon Boogers” novel excerpt (2016) in Voices in the Attic, and “Spider Ball,” Rune (May 2015). Pat has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and is the founder of Free Association, a reading series for established and emerging writers in Pittsburgh. She is currently working on a novel set in Pittsburgh and Burma during the 1920s.

Marc Nieson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and NYU Film School. His background includes children’s theatre, cattle chores, and a season with a one-ring circus. His memoir, SCHOOLHOUSE: Lessons on Love & Landscape, came out from Ice Cube Press in 2016. He’s won a Raymond Carver Short Story Award, Pushcart Prize nominations, and been noted in Best American Essays. He teaches at Chatham University, edits The Fourth River, and is at work 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.

Since its inception FARS has hosted eight summer reading events featuring over forty writers in its rustic Wilkinsburg home. Located at Rebecca & Center in the former Frank & John Valet, Inc., the space is pleasant—open and airy—but without heat, it is only useable in the summer months.

Alphabet City is the winter home of FARS.