Mix it up: Pittsburghers make bartending into a career
Katie Keenan stands behind the bar at Hemingway’s Cafe on Thursday night, in front of a bar packed with mostly students overflowing the bar stools and infringing on each other’s elbow room.
Keenan, wearing a black tank top with the Miller Lite logo across the front, scoops up two bottles of liquor in one hand and a soda gun in the other, pouring a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea as she nods at yet another customer.
“What would you like?”
Keenan, the 33-year-old general manager of Hem’s, always wanted to be a bartender — in part as a retaliation against her parents’ desire that she go to college. As a path to that goal, Keenan started working as a server at Hem’s in 2003, her sophomore year at Pitt.
Keenan started out at Pitt as an English literature major but switched to communication before dropping out during her junior year. Keenan ditched her server job after her 21st birthday and became a bartender. She moved up to general manager four years ago.
“School wasn’t for me,” Keenan said. “I was more into the bar scene. I wanted to work and make money.”
Keenan said it’s almost impossible to skip over the process of being a server before taking charge behind the bar.
“You have to start somewhere,” Keenan said. “You have to prove that you are a reliable and trustworthy employee and eventually move your way up.”
The speed and skill required of the bartender depends heavily on the bar itself — from fast-paced Oakland parties to relatively tranquil Lawrenceville haunts. Despite a belief among some that bartending is little more than a part-time job, a commitment to bar culture can lead to a long-term and financially stable career.
According to a CNN Money article, the median wage including tips for a bartender in the U.S. is $15 per hour — or $2,400 per month — although that number goes up to $18.60 per hour and nearly $3,000 per month for a bar manager.
Those numbers, however, depend greatly on the specific bar and even the specific bartender. Take, for example, the Huffington Post article about a New York City bartender who made $96,000 in one year.
Regardless of the bar itself, bartending takes both training — Pittsburgh’s Elite Bartending School, for example, offers a 40-hour training program — and patience to move up the ranks and earn a spot as a permanent fixture behind the bar top.
Jason Endress, bar director of Tender Bar + Kitchen in Lawrenceville, has worked in restaurants since he was a teenager. Although Endress, 33, always looked up to and respected bartenders, he aspired to be a writer. While simultaneously freelance writing, Endress made took his first bartending gig at Sonny’s Tavern in Bloomfield nine years ago.
Over time, chances of making it as a writer grew slim, so Endress made the switch to full-time bartending and took a job at Tender three years ago.
Though bartending wasn’t his lifelong dream, Endress said the job requires a specific set of personality traits.
“Some of the big personal characteristics I would look for in any bartender worth their salt is humility, empathy, honesty and a strong desire to learn,” Endress said.
Quality bartenders learn their craft by logging extensive hours behind the bar, according to Endress, but it isn’t the only way to make bartending into a successful career. Endress, for example, spent a year working as a brand ambassador for the bourbon distillery Angel’s Envy, which is based in Louisville, Kentucky.
“Bartending is an amazing way to keep a roof over your head, and there’s so much opportunity that goes beyond hawking drinks if you keep an open mind and work hard,” Endress said. “Brand work, consulting, writing and product development are [also] all ripe fields for bartenders.”
In addition to a diversity of career paths, the food and drink business introduces bartenders to a wide variety of people — especially in Southside’s famous bar scene.
Olga Brindar, Bar Manager of Club Café on 12th and East Carson streets, said her bar sees a new set of customers, showgoers and partiers every night. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.F.A., Brindar found employment but was laid off during the recession.
Brindar cycled through a number of odd jobs — including cleaning houses and tutoring students for the SATs — and then came to Club Café three years ago.
Regardless of what type of neighborhood or bar they work in, Pittsburgh’s bartenders benefit from financial stability and a typically night-hours-only schedule. Brindar thinks of bartending as a “recession proof” line of work — poor economic times or not, people will still want to drink. Bartending can work as a second job or, as it is for Brindar, a steady profession.
As primarily a music venue, the atmosphere of Club Café is in constant flux, depending on what type of artist is playing on a given night.
“If I have a bluegrass band in, I’m going to have completely different set of people coming in than if I have a metal show the following night,” Brindar said.
When a music venue meets a bar, the bartender gives up their place as the center of attention and lets the band command the attention of the room.
“As soon as that opener goes on, we start to fade into the background. People come for the show — we are just the icing on the cake. We have to add to that positive energy,” Brindar said. “The nature of our industry is that it is incredibly social. Essentially, we’re being paid to host a party every night.”
To maintain those positive vibes, Brindar and the other Club Café bartenders adjust their approach depending on the atmosphere of each performance. They can hold lively conversation before rock or hip-hop outfits or remain respectfully quiet during acoustic shows, all while turning around beer, wine and cocktail orders.
Club Café serves primarily specialty cocktails — drinks mixed with egg white or topped with gingersnap cookies and pine sprigs.
Though Hems’ style is less focused on cocktails and more demanding of pitchers — both beer and shot — the intensity of Oakland’s bar scene falls in the same category as Southside’s. Most patrons at Hem’s are looking to get drunk fast, which means the bar gets crowded and demanding, especially on weekend nights. With this environment in mind, Keenan said only certain personality types are suited to take up a post behind the bar.
“You have to have a certain level of calmness but yet boss-ness. You can’t be behind the bar and just let everybody walk all over you,” Keenan said. “You have to be in charge when you’re back there. You can’t be afraid to say, ‘you’re not having another one,’ or ‘get out.’”
*Published in The Pitt News / February 2nd, 2017
Keenan, wearing a black tank top with the Miller Lite logo across the front, scoops up two bottles of liquor in one hand and a soda gun in the other, pouring a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea as she nods at yet another customer.
“What would you like?”
Keenan, the 33-year-old general manager of Hem’s, always wanted to be a bartender — in part as a retaliation against her parents’ desire that she go to college. As a path to that goal, Keenan started working as a server at Hem’s in 2003, her sophomore year at Pitt.
Keenan started out at Pitt as an English literature major but switched to communication before dropping out during her junior year. Keenan ditched her server job after her 21st birthday and became a bartender. She moved up to general manager four years ago.
“School wasn’t for me,” Keenan said. “I was more into the bar scene. I wanted to work and make money.”
Keenan said it’s almost impossible to skip over the process of being a server before taking charge behind the bar.
“You have to start somewhere,” Keenan said. “You have to prove that you are a reliable and trustworthy employee and eventually move your way up.”
The speed and skill required of the bartender depends heavily on the bar itself — from fast-paced Oakland parties to relatively tranquil Lawrenceville haunts. Despite a belief among some that bartending is little more than a part-time job, a commitment to bar culture can lead to a long-term and financially stable career.
According to a CNN Money article, the median wage including tips for a bartender in the U.S. is $15 per hour — or $2,400 per month — although that number goes up to $18.60 per hour and nearly $3,000 per month for a bar manager.
Those numbers, however, depend greatly on the specific bar and even the specific bartender. Take, for example, the Huffington Post article about a New York City bartender who made $96,000 in one year.
Regardless of the bar itself, bartending takes both training — Pittsburgh’s Elite Bartending School, for example, offers a 40-hour training program — and patience to move up the ranks and earn a spot as a permanent fixture behind the bar top.
Jason Endress, bar director of Tender Bar + Kitchen in Lawrenceville, has worked in restaurants since he was a teenager. Although Endress, 33, always looked up to and respected bartenders, he aspired to be a writer. While simultaneously freelance writing, Endress made took his first bartending gig at Sonny’s Tavern in Bloomfield nine years ago.
Over time, chances of making it as a writer grew slim, so Endress made the switch to full-time bartending and took a job at Tender three years ago.
Though bartending wasn’t his lifelong dream, Endress said the job requires a specific set of personality traits.
“Some of the big personal characteristics I would look for in any bartender worth their salt is humility, empathy, honesty and a strong desire to learn,” Endress said.
Quality bartenders learn their craft by logging extensive hours behind the bar, according to Endress, but it isn’t the only way to make bartending into a successful career. Endress, for example, spent a year working as a brand ambassador for the bourbon distillery Angel’s Envy, which is based in Louisville, Kentucky.
“Bartending is an amazing way to keep a roof over your head, and there’s so much opportunity that goes beyond hawking drinks if you keep an open mind and work hard,” Endress said. “Brand work, consulting, writing and product development are [also] all ripe fields for bartenders.”
In addition to a diversity of career paths, the food and drink business introduces bartenders to a wide variety of people — especially in Southside’s famous bar scene.
Olga Brindar, Bar Manager of Club Café on 12th and East Carson streets, said her bar sees a new set of customers, showgoers and partiers every night. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.F.A., Brindar found employment but was laid off during the recession.
Brindar cycled through a number of odd jobs — including cleaning houses and tutoring students for the SATs — and then came to Club Café three years ago.
Regardless of what type of neighborhood or bar they work in, Pittsburgh’s bartenders benefit from financial stability and a typically night-hours-only schedule. Brindar thinks of bartending as a “recession proof” line of work — poor economic times or not, people will still want to drink. Bartending can work as a second job or, as it is for Brindar, a steady profession.
As primarily a music venue, the atmosphere of Club Café is in constant flux, depending on what type of artist is playing on a given night.
“If I have a bluegrass band in, I’m going to have completely different set of people coming in than if I have a metal show the following night,” Brindar said.
When a music venue meets a bar, the bartender gives up their place as the center of attention and lets the band command the attention of the room.
“As soon as that opener goes on, we start to fade into the background. People come for the show — we are just the icing on the cake. We have to add to that positive energy,” Brindar said. “The nature of our industry is that it is incredibly social. Essentially, we’re being paid to host a party every night.”
To maintain those positive vibes, Brindar and the other Club Café bartenders adjust their approach depending on the atmosphere of each performance. They can hold lively conversation before rock or hip-hop outfits or remain respectfully quiet during acoustic shows, all while turning around beer, wine and cocktail orders.
Club Café serves primarily specialty cocktails — drinks mixed with egg white or topped with gingersnap cookies and pine sprigs.
Though Hems’ style is less focused on cocktails and more demanding of pitchers — both beer and shot — the intensity of Oakland’s bar scene falls in the same category as Southside’s. Most patrons at Hem’s are looking to get drunk fast, which means the bar gets crowded and demanding, especially on weekend nights. With this environment in mind, Keenan said only certain personality types are suited to take up a post behind the bar.
“You have to have a certain level of calmness but yet boss-ness. You can’t be behind the bar and just let everybody walk all over you,” Keenan said. “You have to be in charge when you’re back there. You can’t be afraid to say, ‘you’re not having another one,’ or ‘get out.’”
*Published in The Pitt News / February 2nd, 2017
Invisible hands: conservators restore and maintain Pittsburgh's artwork
Ellen Baxter, the chief conservator at the Carnegie Museum of Art, has been working on John White Alexander’s enormous 1904 portrait “Aurora Leigh” for nine months.
Baxter is nearly finished with treating the artwork — primarily with a light layer of varnish to gloss over the aging paint’s flakiness — which will then go into the permanent collection galleries.
“I prefer to work very locally under the microscope to try and bring back things like the artist’s signature on ‘Aurora Leigh,’” Baxter said. “I didn’t treat that, I treated all the missing dots around it. So now it’s reading better without me having to interfere with the original signature.”
The conservator’s work is inherently subtle and nearly invisible to the public. Artists typically get all the credit for their work, but in the museum world, the conservator is constantly tinkering behind the scenes to ensure that paintings, sculptures and the like are ready for exhibition.
But as a field mixing art history with science, labs like the one in the Carnegie Museum of Art aren’t populated with people in white coats and safety goggles. Instead, the space is less sterile and looks more like an artist’s own studio.
Baxter’s work uses disparate tools for cleaning — from surgery and dentistry — in order to remove surface dirt from older paintings.
Conservators treat paintings on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of limited invasiveness and a balance of lasting but reversible repairs, so that future conservators can still access the original work.
Baxter studied with a conservator from North Carolina for seven years before earning her master’s in art conservation with a specialty in painting at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. When she came to Pittsburgh, she helped with the original opening exhibition of the Andy Warhol Museum in 1994.
“I just felt this connection with paintings,” Baxter said.
Like Baxter, conservator Ana Alba works primarily with paintings. Alba took her first fellowship following graduation in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and now owns a private practice in Pittsburgh — an art preservation and restoration studio called Alba Art Conservation.
“Conservators adhere to a code of ethics that stresses minimal intervention, reversibility and documentation,” Alba said. “Aside from the actual restoration process, we are trained in the science of the materials, analysis and prevention of further deterioration.”
Baxter deals with painted works from as old as the 16th century to modern pieces that museums have not yet displayed. For more recent artwork, Baxter typically works to stretch canvases a small degree to fit its frame.
“I’m working on [pieces] from about 1510 to about next week,” Baxter joked. “It really could be something brand new.”
Many of the pieces Baxter treats are minimally damaged. One of her restoration projects, Hans Holbein the Younger’s “Portrait of George Neville, Third Lord of Bergavenny,” had a significant amount of damage and required much more work. Baxter removed a discolored brown varnish from the left side of the painting to uncover the original paint, but the restoration is not yet complete.
“It looks a bit like a cat attacked it,” Baxter joked.
Once the painting’s damage has been reversed, the small portrait will go in Carnegie’s permanent collection gallery.
Unlike CMOA, the University Art Gallery at Frick doesn’t require its own in-house conservator, because of its relatively small collection.
According to Isabelle Chartier, the gallery’s curator since 2012, the gallery sometimes calls in conservators from local businesses in Pittsburgh.
“I rely a lot on professional conservators to help me apply the best care to the objects that I oversee in this gallery,” she said.
Like most of what Baxter does, the care that Chartier puts forth falls under the specific category of preventive conservation.
“Preventive conservation doesn’t necessarily imply a direct manipulation in cleaning and restoring the artwork. So when you take care of objects in a collection, it’s all about risk assessment,” Chartier said.
But a conservator’s work does not focus solely on the works of art themselves.
When Baxter took an art history course in college, she was irked by the professors who never discussed the physical structure of the museums and galleries where paintings are displayed.
“I can repair one painting, but if it’s going back into a gallery that has a leak in the roof, or there’s an infestation … it’s not going to do any good for that,” Baxter said. “You have to sort of get the envelope of the building treated.”
The condition of the gallery, especially the Scaife Galleries holding the permanent installations at CMOA, is about as important to preserving artworks as the work done directly to them. Baxter works with the museum’s facilities and collection care committee in order to maintain the proper environment for the works — including lower light levels as well as glass to protect the art from heat and ultraviolet rays — and to ensure effective pest management.
With advancing technology, conservators are able to do their jobs more effectively and protect their artwork more substantially.
“[Conservation] has really evolved in the last few decades as a whole new field that’s based a lot on technology and machines and scientific processes that will help minimize the way that we touch and leave marks on the objects,” Chartier said.
The job of a conservator requires a fascination with art and cultural conservation, but also the virtue of patience. What can sometimes become a tedious job is all worth it for Alba — who’s treated works range from old family heirlooms and portraits, to modern acrylics.
“I enjoy helping people restore and preserve the objects most precious to them and being involved in the local Pittsburgh preservation and arts community. Every job is a challenge in one way or another and solving the puzzle is both frustrating and enlightening,” Alba said.
In numerous respects, there is a clear artistry behind preserving artworks. Following the patience and craft of painters and artists throughout history, conservators act as their own painstaking creators in maintaining or saving precious cultural artifacts for the remaining millennia. But the pride of working with treasures of both past and present has an ethical nobility as well.
“We allow the state of the artwork to determine the course of treatment and not let our aesthetics or the market dictate decisions that are made,” Alba said. “In our practice, the conservator should put the artwork first.”
*Published in The Pitt News / January 24th, 2017
Baxter is nearly finished with treating the artwork — primarily with a light layer of varnish to gloss over the aging paint’s flakiness — which will then go into the permanent collection galleries.
“I prefer to work very locally under the microscope to try and bring back things like the artist’s signature on ‘Aurora Leigh,’” Baxter said. “I didn’t treat that, I treated all the missing dots around it. So now it’s reading better without me having to interfere with the original signature.”
The conservator’s work is inherently subtle and nearly invisible to the public. Artists typically get all the credit for their work, but in the museum world, the conservator is constantly tinkering behind the scenes to ensure that paintings, sculptures and the like are ready for exhibition.
But as a field mixing art history with science, labs like the one in the Carnegie Museum of Art aren’t populated with people in white coats and safety goggles. Instead, the space is less sterile and looks more like an artist’s own studio.
Baxter’s work uses disparate tools for cleaning — from surgery and dentistry — in order to remove surface dirt from older paintings.
Conservators treat paintings on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of limited invasiveness and a balance of lasting but reversible repairs, so that future conservators can still access the original work.
Baxter studied with a conservator from North Carolina for seven years before earning her master’s in art conservation with a specialty in painting at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. When she came to Pittsburgh, she helped with the original opening exhibition of the Andy Warhol Museum in 1994.
“I just felt this connection with paintings,” Baxter said.
Like Baxter, conservator Ana Alba works primarily with paintings. Alba took her first fellowship following graduation in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and now owns a private practice in Pittsburgh — an art preservation and restoration studio called Alba Art Conservation.
“Conservators adhere to a code of ethics that stresses minimal intervention, reversibility and documentation,” Alba said. “Aside from the actual restoration process, we are trained in the science of the materials, analysis and prevention of further deterioration.”
Baxter deals with painted works from as old as the 16th century to modern pieces that museums have not yet displayed. For more recent artwork, Baxter typically works to stretch canvases a small degree to fit its frame.
“I’m working on [pieces] from about 1510 to about next week,” Baxter joked. “It really could be something brand new.”
Many of the pieces Baxter treats are minimally damaged. One of her restoration projects, Hans Holbein the Younger’s “Portrait of George Neville, Third Lord of Bergavenny,” had a significant amount of damage and required much more work. Baxter removed a discolored brown varnish from the left side of the painting to uncover the original paint, but the restoration is not yet complete.
“It looks a bit like a cat attacked it,” Baxter joked.
Once the painting’s damage has been reversed, the small portrait will go in Carnegie’s permanent collection gallery.
Unlike CMOA, the University Art Gallery at Frick doesn’t require its own in-house conservator, because of its relatively small collection.
According to Isabelle Chartier, the gallery’s curator since 2012, the gallery sometimes calls in conservators from local businesses in Pittsburgh.
“I rely a lot on professional conservators to help me apply the best care to the objects that I oversee in this gallery,” she said.
Like most of what Baxter does, the care that Chartier puts forth falls under the specific category of preventive conservation.
“Preventive conservation doesn’t necessarily imply a direct manipulation in cleaning and restoring the artwork. So when you take care of objects in a collection, it’s all about risk assessment,” Chartier said.
But a conservator’s work does not focus solely on the works of art themselves.
When Baxter took an art history course in college, she was irked by the professors who never discussed the physical structure of the museums and galleries where paintings are displayed.
“I can repair one painting, but if it’s going back into a gallery that has a leak in the roof, or there’s an infestation … it’s not going to do any good for that,” Baxter said. “You have to sort of get the envelope of the building treated.”
The condition of the gallery, especially the Scaife Galleries holding the permanent installations at CMOA, is about as important to preserving artworks as the work done directly to them. Baxter works with the museum’s facilities and collection care committee in order to maintain the proper environment for the works — including lower light levels as well as glass to protect the art from heat and ultraviolet rays — and to ensure effective pest management.
With advancing technology, conservators are able to do their jobs more effectively and protect their artwork more substantially.
“[Conservation] has really evolved in the last few decades as a whole new field that’s based a lot on technology and machines and scientific processes that will help minimize the way that we touch and leave marks on the objects,” Chartier said.
The job of a conservator requires a fascination with art and cultural conservation, but also the virtue of patience. What can sometimes become a tedious job is all worth it for Alba — who’s treated works range from old family heirlooms and portraits, to modern acrylics.
“I enjoy helping people restore and preserve the objects most precious to them and being involved in the local Pittsburgh preservation and arts community. Every job is a challenge in one way or another and solving the puzzle is both frustrating and enlightening,” Alba said.
In numerous respects, there is a clear artistry behind preserving artworks. Following the patience and craft of painters and artists throughout history, conservators act as their own painstaking creators in maintaining or saving precious cultural artifacts for the remaining millennia. But the pride of working with treasures of both past and present has an ethical nobility as well.
“We allow the state of the artwork to determine the course of treatment and not let our aesthetics or the market dictate decisions that are made,” Alba said. “In our practice, the conservator should put the artwork first.”
*Published in The Pitt News / January 24th, 2017
Forsaken author J.D. Barker, now a Pittsburgher, anticipates his next novel
J.D. Barker’s 2014 debut novel, Forsaken, was an almost instant success. And this prominent new voice of the horror/thriller genre — who’s now a Pittsburgh resident — is just getting started.
In completing Forsaken, Barker hoped to incorporate the Needful Things shop from Stephen King’s eponymous 1991 novel. He got in touch via email and ultimately received the famed author’s blessing.
“I was shocked. For the next month I thought for sure that I was going to get some kind of email back from him saying, ‘Oh I meant to send that to somebody else,’” Barker said in a recent phone interview.
Barker, 45, and his wife moved to Pittsburgh in October 2015, from Florida. (He dislikes humidity, and his wife has family here.) They buy and sell rental properties, and intended to flip a place in Brentwood but are still living there for now.
For 20 years prior to his newfound success, Barker worked as a hybrid book doctor/ghostwriter. “After a while that got a little bit old, because I had six different books that I worked on that actually hit The New York Times bestseller list and my name wasn’t on them,” Barker says. He began working on his own novels.
Barker’s self-published debut was a fantasy-suspense tale in which the female protagonist of a horror writer’s novel about 17th-century witch trials tries to escape fiction and enter reality. Forsaken reached No. 2 on Audible.com, behind Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.
Stoker’s great-grand-nephew, Dacre Stoker, has since offered Barker the opportunity to co-write a prequel to Dracula using Stoker’s original notes. The novel, set for release in 2018, incorporates the first 100 pages that were scrapped by Dracula’s original publishers, in 1897.
Barker’s second novel, The Fourth Monkey, is more of a thriller. It follows a detective tracking the supposed final victim of a notorious, recently deceased serial killer, using the killer’s diary. The novel, first in a planned trilogy, is set for release by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June.
Barker has sold publishing rights for The Fourth Monkey in America and other countries, and also has a TV and movie deal. “If everything plays out the way that it’s supposed to, we’re going to see a feature film followed up with a network television show,” he says.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / December 21st, 2016
In completing Forsaken, Barker hoped to incorporate the Needful Things shop from Stephen King’s eponymous 1991 novel. He got in touch via email and ultimately received the famed author’s blessing.
“I was shocked. For the next month I thought for sure that I was going to get some kind of email back from him saying, ‘Oh I meant to send that to somebody else,’” Barker said in a recent phone interview.
Barker, 45, and his wife moved to Pittsburgh in October 2015, from Florida. (He dislikes humidity, and his wife has family here.) They buy and sell rental properties, and intended to flip a place in Brentwood but are still living there for now.
For 20 years prior to his newfound success, Barker worked as a hybrid book doctor/ghostwriter. “After a while that got a little bit old, because I had six different books that I worked on that actually hit The New York Times bestseller list and my name wasn’t on them,” Barker says. He began working on his own novels.
Barker’s self-published debut was a fantasy-suspense tale in which the female protagonist of a horror writer’s novel about 17th-century witch trials tries to escape fiction and enter reality. Forsaken reached No. 2 on Audible.com, behind Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.
Stoker’s great-grand-nephew, Dacre Stoker, has since offered Barker the opportunity to co-write a prequel to Dracula using Stoker’s original notes. The novel, set for release in 2018, incorporates the first 100 pages that were scrapped by Dracula’s original publishers, in 1897.
Barker’s second novel, The Fourth Monkey, is more of a thriller. It follows a detective tracking the supposed final victim of a notorious, recently deceased serial killer, using the killer’s diary. The novel, first in a planned trilogy, is set for release by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June.
Barker has sold publishing rights for The Fourth Monkey in America and other countries, and also has a TV and movie deal. “If everything plays out the way that it’s supposed to, we’re going to see a feature film followed up with a network television show,” he says.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / December 21st, 2016
Pittsburgh's indie-bookstore revival continues
In the 1990s, the rise of chain booksellers threatened independent bookstores; in the 2000s, the advent of Amazon and, later, e-books, looked to seal their fate. But in Pittsburgh as nationally — even as the chains themselves have dwindled — friendly neighborhood bookshops continue their unlikely comeback.
“The idea that independently owned bookstores are a thing of the past has been way overestimated,” said Arlan Hess, who owns City Books.
In October, Hess, a former college professor, organized a night of dinner and drinks for local indie booksellers at her store’s North Side neighbor, the Modern Café. Discussion at this unprecedented assembly included the possibility of a collaborative website and a map of local bookstores.
The dinner also functioned as a meet-and-greet for the city’s newest booksellers: John Shortino and Allison Mosher, of Lawrenceville’s Nine Stories. The couple moved here in 2012 from Philadelphia, where they were also involved in the bookstore scene. Nine Stories held its grand opening Oct. 1. That made it the city’s second new or reborn bookstore this year alone — after Hess reopened City Books, formerly of the South Side — and at least the sixth in five years, joining White Whale (formerly East End Book Exchange), in Bloomfield; Classic Lines, in Squirrel Hill; and the two newest outposts of Amazing Books, in Squirrel Hill and Oakland. (Coming soon on the North Side: The Alphabet City bookstore, owned by nonprofit City of Asylum and managed by former East End Book Exchange owner Lesley Rains.)
Like many newer indie stores, Nine Stories specializes in used books. The modest, cozy space, named after a J.D. Salinger short-story collection, is connected to Caffé d’Amore Coffeeshop. That allows patrons to buy a book, get a hot drink, take a seat and read. “People seem more interested in buying books from somebody who knows something about books — there’s a kind of interaction that I think people are really craving,” Shortino says.
Like many indies, Nine Stories looks to weave itself into the city’s literary fabric. The store’s book club held its first meeting in late November. Readings and live music are planned for December. “Events are a nice way to get [authors] who don’t have a lot of readings to be able to have an audience,” says Mosher. “Being a space where the community can come is really important to both [Nine Stories and Caffé d’Amore].” Nine Stories and City Books also offer sections spotlighting local authors, and novelties like scented candles with literature-themed scents, including bourbon and tobacco flower for Catcher in the Rye.
Some shops, like City Books, have gotten new life through new ownership. Two venerable stores focusing on new books, Sewickley’s Penguin Bookshop and Oakmont's Mystery Lovers Bookshop, recently changed hands. So did White Whale Bookstore, whose name, logo, interior design and inventory (formerly mostly used, now half new) were all changed by its new owners this past summer.
Pittsburgh’s longest-tenured booksellers, on the other hand, might be husband and wife John Schulman and Emily Hetzel, whose Caliban Book Shop has anchored South Craig Street, in Oakland, since 1991. Caliban is known for its poetry selection and in-house record store, Desolation Row. For Schulman, the changes rendered in the used-book trade by the internet both helped and hurt. While he can now sell books online to people as far away as Tasmania — Caliban keeps a warehouse in Wilkinsburg specifically for online stock — Amazon remains indie booksellers’ boogeyman, with its discount prices and point-and-click convenience.
“I don’t think people start an independent bookstore in the same way they used to. They know that they have to be really creative, that they have to have an interesting business model,” says Pittsburgh-based bookseller and author Karen Lillis, whom Schulman calls “an expert on bookstore culture.” Her pop-up bookshop, Karen’s Book Row, has recently started selling books online, and she is currently writing a memoir about working at New York City’s storied St. Mark’s Bookshop, which closed in March after 40 years in business.
Hess, too, believes independent bookstores do best in a niche. “I think that Pittsburgh can be particularly hospitable to a number of bookstores because each neighborhood has its own character,” she says. Mystery Lovers carries mostly what its name suggests, as does Polish Hill’s long-running Copacetic Comics. And The Big Idea Bookstore, in Bloomfield, specializes in politically radical writings.
Even in the 21st century, Pittsburgh’s bibliophiles are still turning pages and shopping local. And nationally, membership in the American Book Association, a trade group, has grown for seven straight years, from members at 1,651 locations in 2009 to 2,311 venues this year. Sales at the stores rose 10 percent in 2015 and 5 percent so far this year, according to ABA numbers.
“We all stare at screens all day and when people curl up at night with their dog and cup of tea they want a book,” Hess says.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / December 7th, 2016
“The idea that independently owned bookstores are a thing of the past has been way overestimated,” said Arlan Hess, who owns City Books.
In October, Hess, a former college professor, organized a night of dinner and drinks for local indie booksellers at her store’s North Side neighbor, the Modern Café. Discussion at this unprecedented assembly included the possibility of a collaborative website and a map of local bookstores.
The dinner also functioned as a meet-and-greet for the city’s newest booksellers: John Shortino and Allison Mosher, of Lawrenceville’s Nine Stories. The couple moved here in 2012 from Philadelphia, where they were also involved in the bookstore scene. Nine Stories held its grand opening Oct. 1. That made it the city’s second new or reborn bookstore this year alone — after Hess reopened City Books, formerly of the South Side — and at least the sixth in five years, joining White Whale (formerly East End Book Exchange), in Bloomfield; Classic Lines, in Squirrel Hill; and the two newest outposts of Amazing Books, in Squirrel Hill and Oakland. (Coming soon on the North Side: The Alphabet City bookstore, owned by nonprofit City of Asylum and managed by former East End Book Exchange owner Lesley Rains.)
Like many newer indie stores, Nine Stories specializes in used books. The modest, cozy space, named after a J.D. Salinger short-story collection, is connected to Caffé d’Amore Coffeeshop. That allows patrons to buy a book, get a hot drink, take a seat and read. “People seem more interested in buying books from somebody who knows something about books — there’s a kind of interaction that I think people are really craving,” Shortino says.
Like many indies, Nine Stories looks to weave itself into the city’s literary fabric. The store’s book club held its first meeting in late November. Readings and live music are planned for December. “Events are a nice way to get [authors] who don’t have a lot of readings to be able to have an audience,” says Mosher. “Being a space where the community can come is really important to both [Nine Stories and Caffé d’Amore].” Nine Stories and City Books also offer sections spotlighting local authors, and novelties like scented candles with literature-themed scents, including bourbon and tobacco flower for Catcher in the Rye.
Some shops, like City Books, have gotten new life through new ownership. Two venerable stores focusing on new books, Sewickley’s Penguin Bookshop and Oakmont's Mystery Lovers Bookshop, recently changed hands. So did White Whale Bookstore, whose name, logo, interior design and inventory (formerly mostly used, now half new) were all changed by its new owners this past summer.
Pittsburgh’s longest-tenured booksellers, on the other hand, might be husband and wife John Schulman and Emily Hetzel, whose Caliban Book Shop has anchored South Craig Street, in Oakland, since 1991. Caliban is known for its poetry selection and in-house record store, Desolation Row. For Schulman, the changes rendered in the used-book trade by the internet both helped and hurt. While he can now sell books online to people as far away as Tasmania — Caliban keeps a warehouse in Wilkinsburg specifically for online stock — Amazon remains indie booksellers’ boogeyman, with its discount prices and point-and-click convenience.
“I don’t think people start an independent bookstore in the same way they used to. They know that they have to be really creative, that they have to have an interesting business model,” says Pittsburgh-based bookseller and author Karen Lillis, whom Schulman calls “an expert on bookstore culture.” Her pop-up bookshop, Karen’s Book Row, has recently started selling books online, and she is currently writing a memoir about working at New York City’s storied St. Mark’s Bookshop, which closed in March after 40 years in business.
Hess, too, believes independent bookstores do best in a niche. “I think that Pittsburgh can be particularly hospitable to a number of bookstores because each neighborhood has its own character,” she says. Mystery Lovers carries mostly what its name suggests, as does Polish Hill’s long-running Copacetic Comics. And The Big Idea Bookstore, in Bloomfield, specializes in politically radical writings.
Even in the 21st century, Pittsburgh’s bibliophiles are still turning pages and shopping local. And nationally, membership in the American Book Association, a trade group, has grown for seven straight years, from members at 1,651 locations in 2009 to 2,311 venues this year. Sales at the stores rose 10 percent in 2015 and 5 percent so far this year, according to ABA numbers.
“We all stare at screens all day and when people curl up at night with their dog and cup of tea they want a book,” Hess says.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / December 7th, 2016
A theater group seeks help
to create a new sport
For Real/Time Interventions’ SPORT Invention Workshops, the central question has been, “What new sport does the world need?” The theater troupe’s Molly Rice and Rusty Thelin want to create such a sport in collaboration with Pittsburgh residents.
Four workshops have taken place since July. Rice calls them “a combination of devised theater, a neighborhood pick-up game and a lively discussion on our world.”
Rice and Thelin moved to Pittsburgh three years ago, and noticed how integral sports are to the community. Their work here has included the memorable immersive show (with Bricolage Productions) The Saints Tour — Braddock. Then they decided to try something both challenging and unfamiliar.
Their workshops involve posing questions about topics like rules, and comparing athletes to theatrical characters, to spark discussion about sports and life. Then come prompts and tests to explore the issues physically.
Objects are also involved. Rice says the items chosen for possible use are “the weirdest stuff we can find just to move [the new sport] out of the traditional sports vocabulary.” A small potted cactus remains the oddest piece yet to be incorporated.
The sports spawned are often collaborative rather than competitive, and sometimes strange. For instance, the painstaking game Tree Egging involves transporting an egg safely to a spot in a tree using only tennis rackets.
A more competitive sport conceived by attendees is Heart Attack, a variation on tag in which teams must join the separate pieces of a plastic heart. An opponent’s pieces can be retrieved only if, on contact, you are the one with the lowest heart rate (as gauged with a finger on the wrist).
Next year, Real/Time plans more workshops. By 2018, once the new sport takes shape, Rice and Thelin aspire to a full season: a draft, spring training, and a series of games and shows in the summer followed by a championship, all with competing or cooperating neighborhoods.
“We really are hoping that the neighborhoods themselves will become proud of their contribution to what we’re trying to build,” Thelin says.
The next workshop is from noon-4 p.m. on Sun., Dec. 4, at Braddock’s Nyia Page Community Center. “I think the December 4th workshop will definitely be the closest to linking ideas of theater and sports as far as what we’ve done so far,” Thelin says. To attend, whether for the full four hours or some portion thereof, RSVP at [email protected].
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 30th, 2016
Four workshops have taken place since July. Rice calls them “a combination of devised theater, a neighborhood pick-up game and a lively discussion on our world.”
Rice and Thelin moved to Pittsburgh three years ago, and noticed how integral sports are to the community. Their work here has included the memorable immersive show (with Bricolage Productions) The Saints Tour — Braddock. Then they decided to try something both challenging and unfamiliar.
Their workshops involve posing questions about topics like rules, and comparing athletes to theatrical characters, to spark discussion about sports and life. Then come prompts and tests to explore the issues physically.
Objects are also involved. Rice says the items chosen for possible use are “the weirdest stuff we can find just to move [the new sport] out of the traditional sports vocabulary.” A small potted cactus remains the oddest piece yet to be incorporated.
The sports spawned are often collaborative rather than competitive, and sometimes strange. For instance, the painstaking game Tree Egging involves transporting an egg safely to a spot in a tree using only tennis rackets.
A more competitive sport conceived by attendees is Heart Attack, a variation on tag in which teams must join the separate pieces of a plastic heart. An opponent’s pieces can be retrieved only if, on contact, you are the one with the lowest heart rate (as gauged with a finger on the wrist).
Next year, Real/Time plans more workshops. By 2018, once the new sport takes shape, Rice and Thelin aspire to a full season: a draft, spring training, and a series of games and shows in the summer followed by a championship, all with competing or cooperating neighborhoods.
“We really are hoping that the neighborhoods themselves will become proud of their contribution to what we’re trying to build,” Thelin says.
The next workshop is from noon-4 p.m. on Sun., Dec. 4, at Braddock’s Nyia Page Community Center. “I think the December 4th workshop will definitely be the closest to linking ideas of theater and sports as far as what we’ve done so far,” Thelin says. To attend, whether for the full four hours or some portion thereof, RSVP at [email protected].
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 30th, 2016
Children's-book author depicts little-known African-American historical role model
The inspiration for Tick Tock Banneker’s Clock, Fox Chapel resident Shana Keller’s first published children’s book, came from her daughter.
Four years ago, Keller’s daughter came home from first grade during Black History Month with an article on the mostly self-taught astronomer, scientist and mathematician Benjamin Banneker, a free African American born in Baltimore County, Md., in 1731.
“I actually majored in African-American history in college and really thought I knew all the key people throughout American history of African descent, and I’d never come across his name before,” Keller said.
Growing up in Texas, the only figures mentioned in her history classes were Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Keller pursued her interests at the University of Miami. Later, as a stay-at-home mom, she focused on writing whenever possible, even taking a screenwriting class from UCLA a few years ago.
Intrigued by the life and achievements of Banneker (who even wrote his own almanac), she spent eight months researching him. Her book covers his successful attempt to construct a striking clock from the template of the gears inside a pocket watch, which he completed at age 22.
Though he was never enslaved, Banneker attended school only briefly. He was later an abolitionist and corresponded with Thomas Jefferson about civil rights. In his later years, Banneker helped survey the terrain where the nation’s capital would be erected.
Keller chose the children’s-book format — the book features illustrations by David C. Gardner — because she feels that kids need constructive role models. “He still managed to educate himself — he still managed to succeed,” Keller said.
Keller has alerted all elementary schools using Banneker’s name about her book, and has sent free copies to some underfunded schools. “Those are the kids that need that positive image the most,” she said.
Keller has another children’s book under consideration with Tick Tock’s publisher, Sleeping Bear Press. She also has two more works she hopes to publish: another picture book for young ones and a middle-grade book.
On Dec. 10, Keller will be part of the Colfax Elementary School fundraiser and book-signing at the Homestead Barnes & Noble. On Jan. 14 and 15, Keller will participate in Story Time: Makeshop at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 23rd, 2016
Four years ago, Keller’s daughter came home from first grade during Black History Month with an article on the mostly self-taught astronomer, scientist and mathematician Benjamin Banneker, a free African American born in Baltimore County, Md., in 1731.
“I actually majored in African-American history in college and really thought I knew all the key people throughout American history of African descent, and I’d never come across his name before,” Keller said.
Growing up in Texas, the only figures mentioned in her history classes were Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Keller pursued her interests at the University of Miami. Later, as a stay-at-home mom, she focused on writing whenever possible, even taking a screenwriting class from UCLA a few years ago.
Intrigued by the life and achievements of Banneker (who even wrote his own almanac), she spent eight months researching him. Her book covers his successful attempt to construct a striking clock from the template of the gears inside a pocket watch, which he completed at age 22.
Though he was never enslaved, Banneker attended school only briefly. He was later an abolitionist and corresponded with Thomas Jefferson about civil rights. In his later years, Banneker helped survey the terrain where the nation’s capital would be erected.
Keller chose the children’s-book format — the book features illustrations by David C. Gardner — because she feels that kids need constructive role models. “He still managed to educate himself — he still managed to succeed,” Keller said.
Keller has alerted all elementary schools using Banneker’s name about her book, and has sent free copies to some underfunded schools. “Those are the kids that need that positive image the most,” she said.
Keller has another children’s book under consideration with Tick Tock’s publisher, Sleeping Bear Press. She also has two more works she hopes to publish: another picture book for young ones and a middle-grade book.
On Dec. 10, Keller will be part of the Colfax Elementary School fundraiser and book-signing at the Homestead Barnes & Noble. On Jan. 14 and 15, Keller will participate in Story Time: Makeshop at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 23rd, 2016
Pittsburgh native Lee Terbosic reprises Houdini upside-down escape Downtown this Sunday
Nationally touring comedian, magician and Baldwin borough resident Lee Terbosic will perform an upside-down straitjacket escape for the people of Pittsburgh on Nov. 6.
"I haven't done any other crazy stunts like this personally. I mean I've jumped out of airplanes but magic-wise this is my real first big stunt," said Terbosic, a Pittsburgh native who was on America's Got Talent last year, in a recent phone interview.
The Houdini 100 event is happening one century to the day after Harry Houdini performed the same suspended stunt, and moreover in the same location — the corner of Liberty Avenue and Wood, while dangling from a crane 60 to 70 feet in the air.
Terbosic was inspired to contact Mayor Bill Peduto and arrange the event after seeing an image in a book picturing Houdini performing in the air above crowds of people packing Downtown streets in 1916. Peduto later declared Nov. 6 "Lee Terbosic Day."
Though he's done the standard straitjacket escape thousands of times, Terbosic has been conditioning his body to be upside-down for long periods of time using an inversion table.
"I've been performing the straitjacket escape in my act for about 15 years, but always on two feet," Terbosic said. With practice he reduces any risk of blood rushing to his head and possible unconsciousness.
Terbosic isn't nervous thanks to his experience, conditioning and his faith in his safety crew from locally based Adrenalin Dreams. "I'm confident, but of course I'm also a little cautious," Terbosic says.
Houdini 100 is a free event open to the public. The streets will close at 10:30 a.m. and a set by DJ Scottro will precede Terbosic's stunt at noon.
The night before, Nov. 5, there is a VIP pre-party at the Dave & Busters in Waterfront with guest DJ Bamboo at 8 p.m.
Tickets are also available for an after-party to watch the Steelers game with Terbosic at Ten Penny starting at 1 p.m. with guest DJ Petey C.
*Published on the Blogh of Pittsburgh City Paper / November 3rd, 2016
"I haven't done any other crazy stunts like this personally. I mean I've jumped out of airplanes but magic-wise this is my real first big stunt," said Terbosic, a Pittsburgh native who was on America's Got Talent last year, in a recent phone interview.
The Houdini 100 event is happening one century to the day after Harry Houdini performed the same suspended stunt, and moreover in the same location — the corner of Liberty Avenue and Wood, while dangling from a crane 60 to 70 feet in the air.
Terbosic was inspired to contact Mayor Bill Peduto and arrange the event after seeing an image in a book picturing Houdini performing in the air above crowds of people packing Downtown streets in 1916. Peduto later declared Nov. 6 "Lee Terbosic Day."
Though he's done the standard straitjacket escape thousands of times, Terbosic has been conditioning his body to be upside-down for long periods of time using an inversion table.
"I've been performing the straitjacket escape in my act for about 15 years, but always on two feet," Terbosic said. With practice he reduces any risk of blood rushing to his head and possible unconsciousness.
Terbosic isn't nervous thanks to his experience, conditioning and his faith in his safety crew from locally based Adrenalin Dreams. "I'm confident, but of course I'm also a little cautious," Terbosic says.
Houdini 100 is a free event open to the public. The streets will close at 10:30 a.m. and a set by DJ Scottro will precede Terbosic's stunt at noon.
The night before, Nov. 5, there is a VIP pre-party at the Dave & Busters in Waterfront with guest DJ Bamboo at 8 p.m.
Tickets are also available for an after-party to watch the Steelers game with Terbosic at Ten Penny starting at 1 p.m. with guest DJ Petey C.
*Published on the Blogh of Pittsburgh City Paper / November 3rd, 2016
P-G Reporter Paula Reed Ward's first book tackles a notorious local murder
Paula Reed Ward knew she would write her first book the moment she read the affidavit of probable cause in the death of Dr. Autumn Klein. At 11 pages, it was the lengthiest and most detailed the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter had ever seen at the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.
“I actually said it out loud to our police reporter Liz Navratil, ‘This would be a great book,’” says Ward, who has covered more than a dozen capital murder trials. The progression of the case only solidified the book’s potential for her.
Death by Cyanide: The Murder of Autumn Klein (ForeEdge), an account of one of Pittsburgh’s more lurid murder trials in recent years, covers the relationship between Klein and her husband, Dr. Robert Ferrante, Klein’s mysterious death and Ferrante’s trial and conviction.
Klein was a 41-year-old neurologist specializing in seizure disorders in pregnant women. She was chief of women’s neurology at UPMC. Ferrante, 64, had joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty after more than 20 years at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Klein collapsed on April 17, 2013, and died three days later. Prosecutors said Ferrante carried out his plan to poison his wife in response to her pressuring him to have a second child, and possibly because he feared she was cheating on him or wanted a divorce.
“The circumstances of the case were … fascinating in that they were two highly educated people with outstanding careers and a great life station, and yet their entire relationship fell apart,” says Ward. “It was also intriguing to me that it was a poisoning” — her first homicide trial for a poisoning in 20 years as a reporter.
Ward has been with the Post-Gazette since 2003. In the summer following the 2014 trial, she took two months off to write the book, and her manuscript was ready by November 2015.
The transition to writing a book wasn’t significant for Ward. “The reporting process was the exact same. … The Post-Gazette allows me to write narrative pretty often. The only difference in this instance was being able to sustain that for 230 pages versus 30 inches,” she says. The book was released on Oct. 4. Promotional appearances are scheduled in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Massachusetts.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 2nd, 2016
“I actually said it out loud to our police reporter Liz Navratil, ‘This would be a great book,’” says Ward, who has covered more than a dozen capital murder trials. The progression of the case only solidified the book’s potential for her.
Death by Cyanide: The Murder of Autumn Klein (ForeEdge), an account of one of Pittsburgh’s more lurid murder trials in recent years, covers the relationship between Klein and her husband, Dr. Robert Ferrante, Klein’s mysterious death and Ferrante’s trial and conviction.
Klein was a 41-year-old neurologist specializing in seizure disorders in pregnant women. She was chief of women’s neurology at UPMC. Ferrante, 64, had joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty after more than 20 years at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Klein collapsed on April 17, 2013, and died three days later. Prosecutors said Ferrante carried out his plan to poison his wife in response to her pressuring him to have a second child, and possibly because he feared she was cheating on him or wanted a divorce.
“The circumstances of the case were … fascinating in that they were two highly educated people with outstanding careers and a great life station, and yet their entire relationship fell apart,” says Ward. “It was also intriguing to me that it was a poisoning” — her first homicide trial for a poisoning in 20 years as a reporter.
Ward has been with the Post-Gazette since 2003. In the summer following the 2014 trial, she took two months off to write the book, and her manuscript was ready by November 2015.
The transition to writing a book wasn’t significant for Ward. “The reporting process was the exact same. … The Post-Gazette allows me to write narrative pretty often. The only difference in this instance was being able to sustain that for 230 pages versus 30 inches,” she says. The book was released on Oct. 4. Promotional appearances are scheduled in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Massachusetts.
*Published in Pittsburgh City Paper / November 2nd, 2016
Pretty Little Liars author and
Pittsburgh resident holds launch party
for new series tomorrow
Though the first installment of her new young-adult series, The Amateurs, was only just released, bestselling author Sara Shepard says the books has already been optioned for TV.
Shepard's first and most successful series, Pretty Little Liars — which has spanned a whopping 16 entries, not counting two companion books — has become a popular television show since it premiered on ABC Family in 2010. It is currently in its seventh and final season.
The Amateurs (Freeform) involves 18-year-old high school student Seneca Frazier, who wants to discover what happened to a senior, Helena Kelly, who disappeared and was likely killed five years earlier. By connecting with the victim's sister and other interested parties on an online message board for cold cases, the curious group begins an investigation of its own.
Shepard, reached by phone, says that The Amateurs is the first book in a planned trilogy. But Shepard, who has already penned the second installment, says the series could possibly be prolonged like her others have been. "Pretty Little Liars was at first only four books, and then extended to eight and then more, so we never know," Shepard says.
While The Amateurs retains the mystery elements of her other similar series, it offers a darker tone inspired more by true-crime works like the Serial podcast, hosted by Sarah Koenig. "There are also a couple of male POVs which is fun to do because most of my characters have been girls," Shepard adds.
Regarding other modern fantasy young-adult novels, Shepard's interests skew toward the dystopian. She has enjoyed the Hunger Games series and The Thousandth Floor, by Katherin McGee. "I'm always reading YA — it's part of the job," she says.
Shepard grew up in Philadelphia, and moved back there in 2008 after earning her master's of fine arts at Brooklyn College, in New York. She moved to Pittsburgh in 2012. Her other YA series include The Lying Game — which was also adapted into a show on ABC Family — and The Perfectionists. Shepard also has two adult novels, The Visibles and Everything We Ever Wanted.
A free launch party for The Amateurs with Shepard takes place tomorrow at the Penguin Bookshop, in Sewickley, at 6 p.m.
The store is located at 417 Beaver St.
*Published on the Blogh of Pittsburgh City Paper / October 31st, 2016
Shepard's first and most successful series, Pretty Little Liars — which has spanned a whopping 16 entries, not counting two companion books — has become a popular television show since it premiered on ABC Family in 2010. It is currently in its seventh and final season.
The Amateurs (Freeform) involves 18-year-old high school student Seneca Frazier, who wants to discover what happened to a senior, Helena Kelly, who disappeared and was likely killed five years earlier. By connecting with the victim's sister and other interested parties on an online message board for cold cases, the curious group begins an investigation of its own.
Shepard, reached by phone, says that The Amateurs is the first book in a planned trilogy. But Shepard, who has already penned the second installment, says the series could possibly be prolonged like her others have been. "Pretty Little Liars was at first only four books, and then extended to eight and then more, so we never know," Shepard says.
While The Amateurs retains the mystery elements of her other similar series, it offers a darker tone inspired more by true-crime works like the Serial podcast, hosted by Sarah Koenig. "There are also a couple of male POVs which is fun to do because most of my characters have been girls," Shepard adds.
Regarding other modern fantasy young-adult novels, Shepard's interests skew toward the dystopian. She has enjoyed the Hunger Games series and The Thousandth Floor, by Katherin McGee. "I'm always reading YA — it's part of the job," she says.
Shepard grew up in Philadelphia, and moved back there in 2008 after earning her master's of fine arts at Brooklyn College, in New York. She moved to Pittsburgh in 2012. Her other YA series include The Lying Game — which was also adapted into a show on ABC Family — and The Perfectionists. Shepard also has two adult novels, The Visibles and Everything We Ever Wanted.
A free launch party for The Amateurs with Shepard takes place tomorrow at the Penguin Bookshop, in Sewickley, at 6 p.m.
The store is located at 417 Beaver St.
*Published on the Blogh of Pittsburgh City Paper / October 31st, 2016
A spirited affair: "Fright Night" draws mix of actors, Halloween enthusiasts
For some people, Halloween doesn’t end with childhood.
Every fall season for the past 14 years, local amusement park Kennywood has drawn actors with varying experience to dress up and scare visitors during its Halloween-themed events, Phantom Fright Nights, which spooks visitors every Friday and Saturday in October.
“Fright Nights are a unique time of the year as far as who comes out to apply,” said Scott Sypien, one of the managers who oversees the haunted attractions during this season.
Though high school and college students dominate the staff during the summer, Fright Nights attract a smattering of enthusiastic performers.
One of them is Eilaina Velan, a senior chemical engineering major at Pitt, who has worked at Fright Nights for six straight years.
“It’s really something that I can’t miss, it’s honestly the only thing that makes me consider staying in Pittsburgh when I graduate,” she said.
Despite earning a managerial position after her first two years scaring visitors, Velan’s primary Fright Nights occupation is still performing, particularly as two characters — a Predator-like creature with fangs and Pinky, an insane asylum escapee who rides a scooter and carries an umbrella.
Velan said Pinky draws the most violent reactions, sometimes causing visitors to break out into a frightened sprint.
Fright Nights lure actors of all ages and experience, according to Sypien, who conducts the auditions for scarer positions.
“We have 16-year-olds where it’s their first job ever … we have young adults who just love Halloween … and then we actually have some older retirees who have worked here for a number of years and have awesome characters,” he said.
Applicants submit an interview and audition before going through training to prepare to interact with the few thousand people who attend any given Fright Night.
In the weeks before October, newbie scarers prepare in a classroom-style orientation to learn the expectations and appropriate behavior, such as how to engage visitors without touching them, as well as types of scares and how to apply them effectively.
The scarers then perform a dress rehearsal, where inexperienced actors pair with veterans to learn their specific station’s workings and props.
Once they learn the ropes, employees tend to stick around.
“We’ve had people who have been coming back as a specific character, some for [the] 14 years that Fright Nights has been in existence,” said Nick Paradise, a Kennywood spokesperson. “We have about 250 actors this year, and a large number of those are returning.”
One of them is Sypien, a 2001 Pitt graduate, who worked as a Kennywood ride operator in the summer during his college years.
He joined the Fright Nights team for fun and extra cash, but is now one of its three highest managers. Fright Nights has developed a loyal employee base, like Sypien and Velan, which Sypien credits to the visitors’ reactions.
“It’s a kind of adrenaline rush,” Sypien said. “When you get a good scare, when you see somebody jump up in the air, or grab onto their boyfriend or girlfriend, or yell out some kind of exclamation, it’s rewarding. I think people enjoy it just for the reactions that they get.”
Applicants’ auditions and personalities mainly determine their position within the park. Kennywood also assigns actors based on their comfort as an inside or outside scarer — the latter involving much more public interaction walking around the park as opposed to a single spot performers keep inside pop-up booths.
According to Kennywood spokesperson Nick Paradise, previous experience is hardly required to be part of Fright Nights — there’s only one universal trait.
“Above all, it’s passion,” he said.
Not all actors come into the job ready to out-scare Freddy Krueger, however.
“It’s amazing how someone can get hired — and they may not be the most outgoing or loud or boisterous,” Sypien said. “But once they get into this and they find their niche, they really develop a character. So if they do come back later, that person has this whole identity for Fright Nights as opposed to who they are the other 350 days out of the year.”
Velan, who lives a self-described “under-a-rock” academic lifestyle studying chemical engineering, said Fright Nights are the “one thing I look forward to every year.”
Fright Nights’ Halloween spirit doesn’t escape even the top bosses, however. Despite his bigger responsibilities, Sypien enjoys donning the makeup and costume whenever he gets the chance.
“On nights that go smooth I do like to get in character for a little while — it’s certainly an exhilarating time,” he said.
After visiting the 10 haunted attractions at least twice per night — to check on the actors and offer them feedback — Sypien uses his spare time to slip into some of his favorite characters.
The first character is what he approximates to a dead Willie Nelson, where he uses the strumming of a guitar as a way to startle guests. The other is a giant angry ear of corn, which he often uses to scare people in the corn stalks.
“I actually have regular ears of corn that I use for my hands,” he said. “I hold the end of an ear and let it stick out of my jacket.”
Velan finds a similar joy in her work. Aside from the “family” she has found in her coworkers, the best parts for her are the interactions with patrons.
“I know it might sound a little sadistic or weird wanting to go in and scare people,” she said, “But it’s really for the laughs that people get when they get scared.”
*Published in The Pitt News / October 29th, 2015
Every fall season for the past 14 years, local amusement park Kennywood has drawn actors with varying experience to dress up and scare visitors during its Halloween-themed events, Phantom Fright Nights, which spooks visitors every Friday and Saturday in October.
“Fright Nights are a unique time of the year as far as who comes out to apply,” said Scott Sypien, one of the managers who oversees the haunted attractions during this season.
Though high school and college students dominate the staff during the summer, Fright Nights attract a smattering of enthusiastic performers.
One of them is Eilaina Velan, a senior chemical engineering major at Pitt, who has worked at Fright Nights for six straight years.
“It’s really something that I can’t miss, it’s honestly the only thing that makes me consider staying in Pittsburgh when I graduate,” she said.
Despite earning a managerial position after her first two years scaring visitors, Velan’s primary Fright Nights occupation is still performing, particularly as two characters — a Predator-like creature with fangs and Pinky, an insane asylum escapee who rides a scooter and carries an umbrella.
Velan said Pinky draws the most violent reactions, sometimes causing visitors to break out into a frightened sprint.
Fright Nights lure actors of all ages and experience, according to Sypien, who conducts the auditions for scarer positions.
“We have 16-year-olds where it’s their first job ever … we have young adults who just love Halloween … and then we actually have some older retirees who have worked here for a number of years and have awesome characters,” he said.
Applicants submit an interview and audition before going through training to prepare to interact with the few thousand people who attend any given Fright Night.
In the weeks before October, newbie scarers prepare in a classroom-style orientation to learn the expectations and appropriate behavior, such as how to engage visitors without touching them, as well as types of scares and how to apply them effectively.
The scarers then perform a dress rehearsal, where inexperienced actors pair with veterans to learn their specific station’s workings and props.
Once they learn the ropes, employees tend to stick around.
“We’ve had people who have been coming back as a specific character, some for [the] 14 years that Fright Nights has been in existence,” said Nick Paradise, a Kennywood spokesperson. “We have about 250 actors this year, and a large number of those are returning.”
One of them is Sypien, a 2001 Pitt graduate, who worked as a Kennywood ride operator in the summer during his college years.
He joined the Fright Nights team for fun and extra cash, but is now one of its three highest managers. Fright Nights has developed a loyal employee base, like Sypien and Velan, which Sypien credits to the visitors’ reactions.
“It’s a kind of adrenaline rush,” Sypien said. “When you get a good scare, when you see somebody jump up in the air, or grab onto their boyfriend or girlfriend, or yell out some kind of exclamation, it’s rewarding. I think people enjoy it just for the reactions that they get.”
Applicants’ auditions and personalities mainly determine their position within the park. Kennywood also assigns actors based on their comfort as an inside or outside scarer — the latter involving much more public interaction walking around the park as opposed to a single spot performers keep inside pop-up booths.
According to Kennywood spokesperson Nick Paradise, previous experience is hardly required to be part of Fright Nights — there’s only one universal trait.
“Above all, it’s passion,” he said.
Not all actors come into the job ready to out-scare Freddy Krueger, however.
“It’s amazing how someone can get hired — and they may not be the most outgoing or loud or boisterous,” Sypien said. “But once they get into this and they find their niche, they really develop a character. So if they do come back later, that person has this whole identity for Fright Nights as opposed to who they are the other 350 days out of the year.”
Velan, who lives a self-described “under-a-rock” academic lifestyle studying chemical engineering, said Fright Nights are the “one thing I look forward to every year.”
Fright Nights’ Halloween spirit doesn’t escape even the top bosses, however. Despite his bigger responsibilities, Sypien enjoys donning the makeup and costume whenever he gets the chance.
“On nights that go smooth I do like to get in character for a little while — it’s certainly an exhilarating time,” he said.
After visiting the 10 haunted attractions at least twice per night — to check on the actors and offer them feedback — Sypien uses his spare time to slip into some of his favorite characters.
The first character is what he approximates to a dead Willie Nelson, where he uses the strumming of a guitar as a way to startle guests. The other is a giant angry ear of corn, which he often uses to scare people in the corn stalks.
“I actually have regular ears of corn that I use for my hands,” he said. “I hold the end of an ear and let it stick out of my jacket.”
Velan finds a similar joy in her work. Aside from the “family” she has found in her coworkers, the best parts for her are the interactions with patrons.
“I know it might sound a little sadistic or weird wanting to go in and scare people,” she said, “But it’s really for the laughs that people get when they get scared.”
*Published in The Pitt News / October 29th, 2015
"N'At's All Folks": Second City brings a Pittsburgh-specific gig
Although they hail from Chicago, the improv troupe The Second City visits Pittsburgh with a show exclusively for and about the city’s residents.
The critically acclaimed ensemble will perform its original show “N’At’s All Folks!” six times at Pittsburgh Public Theater’s O’Reilly Theater from Jan. 6 through Jan. 10 in Downtown Pittsburgh. Since the show is a new creation, and the group will improvise certain sections, there should be many surprises for audiences. It will largely be both a celebration and satire of Pittsburgh culture. The Second City is the country’s first ongoing comedy troupe. Since 1959 it has been training and launching countless now-famous alumni, including Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey and Bill Murray.
“I think people should leave the show feeling proud to be from Pittsburgh,” John Thibodeaux, one of six performers in “N’At’s All Folks!,” said.
The cast promises that no two shows will be exactly alike, making any performance an exclusive experience. The production — split into two 45-minute acts — will be comprised of some classic Second City scenes from their archive, audience-inspired improv and Pittsburgh-focused topics, such as sports rivalries and politics. Lisa Beasley, a seasoned member of Second City, also teases that the cast has been studying up on their Pittsburgh accents.
The Pittsburgh Public Theater, after being impressed by an original show back in 2008, invited Second City to look back at the best of the troupe’s more than 50 years in the funny business and more recent Pittsburgh happenings.
According to Nate DuFort, the producing director of Second City’s touring companies, Second City has experience in putting together these customized, city-centric shows. Pittsburgh is a part of the countrywide tour of similar shows entitled “Second City Hits Home.”
“The coolest part is that whatever show you come to, that’s going to be the only show like that,” Beasley said.
For Beasley, improv comedy proved more rewarding than her time in traditional theater.
“When I was doing scripted theater, I loved it, but I was just that one character for six weeks. In one show [with Second City], I could be six characters in 10 minutes,” Beasley said.
Another performer, Alan Linic, acknowledged the combination of individual and group work with Second City.
“There’s a lot that must be done on one’s own – learning lines, finding humor or where to add little personal touches, studying archive videos,” Linic said. “But there’s just as much that is discovered through [the] rehearsal process … there are a lot of moving parts and lines and blocking and songs to memorize.”
Although Second City bases one of its major training facilities out of Chicago, it travels and performs more than 400 shows a year both domestically and internationally. Both Thibodeaux and Linic went through Chicago’s conservatory program, developing lasting relationships as well as sharper improvisational skills.
“It’s just nice to be in an environment where there are so many like-minded people around,” Thibodeaux said. He remains friends with many of his classmates from his yearlong program at the training center.
Steven Boyd, Editor-in-Chief of The Pittiful News, a monthly satire paper at Pitt, went through Second City’s month-long intensive improv program — taught in part by Stephen Colbert’s former roommate — in Chicago in 2013.
“The Chicago scene is very much rooted in just developing the raw talent for being onstage,” Boyd said.
Boyd said part of the skill of improv learning is “how to progress a storyline without having any rules.”
All three Second City performers said nearly the same thing about the challenges of improv — it’s all about intuition and “getting out of your head,” as Beasley put it. Overthinking devastates improv, Beasley said, and the simple task of walking can become a gargantuan feat.
“If someone asks you to ‘walk normally,’ it’s almost impossible to do it. There’s just so much going on – where to put your legs, what your arms are doing, how much breathing is too much, the pace. Improv, likewise, is easiest when you just do it,” Linic said.
The cast, despite the particular challenges of their unusual work, finds inspiration in the many great talents that have preceded them.
Linic and Thibodeaux still find it hard to believe that they’re doing what their heroes did.
“Every once in a while you have to stop and look around and realize how lucky you are,” Thibodeaux said. He grew up loving Saturday Night Live and became interested in Second City once he realized where his favorite performers were coming from.
For the indifferent and unmoved in the Pittsburgh scene, Thibodeaux said those who see the show will receive “a renewed sense of community.”
Beasley is equally optimistic about the show’s reception.
“It’s an experience. I’m trying to think of another way to say extremely fun, but that is a statement in itself … and it’s good to just laugh,” Beasley said, urging yinzers to “start off the New Year doing something different and just having some fun.”
*Published in The Pitt News / January 4th, 2015
The critically acclaimed ensemble will perform its original show “N’At’s All Folks!” six times at Pittsburgh Public Theater’s O’Reilly Theater from Jan. 6 through Jan. 10 in Downtown Pittsburgh. Since the show is a new creation, and the group will improvise certain sections, there should be many surprises for audiences. It will largely be both a celebration and satire of Pittsburgh culture. The Second City is the country’s first ongoing comedy troupe. Since 1959 it has been training and launching countless now-famous alumni, including Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey and Bill Murray.
“I think people should leave the show feeling proud to be from Pittsburgh,” John Thibodeaux, one of six performers in “N’At’s All Folks!,” said.
The cast promises that no two shows will be exactly alike, making any performance an exclusive experience. The production — split into two 45-minute acts — will be comprised of some classic Second City scenes from their archive, audience-inspired improv and Pittsburgh-focused topics, such as sports rivalries and politics. Lisa Beasley, a seasoned member of Second City, also teases that the cast has been studying up on their Pittsburgh accents.
The Pittsburgh Public Theater, after being impressed by an original show back in 2008, invited Second City to look back at the best of the troupe’s more than 50 years in the funny business and more recent Pittsburgh happenings.
According to Nate DuFort, the producing director of Second City’s touring companies, Second City has experience in putting together these customized, city-centric shows. Pittsburgh is a part of the countrywide tour of similar shows entitled “Second City Hits Home.”
“The coolest part is that whatever show you come to, that’s going to be the only show like that,” Beasley said.
For Beasley, improv comedy proved more rewarding than her time in traditional theater.
“When I was doing scripted theater, I loved it, but I was just that one character for six weeks. In one show [with Second City], I could be six characters in 10 minutes,” Beasley said.
Another performer, Alan Linic, acknowledged the combination of individual and group work with Second City.
“There’s a lot that must be done on one’s own – learning lines, finding humor or where to add little personal touches, studying archive videos,” Linic said. “But there’s just as much that is discovered through [the] rehearsal process … there are a lot of moving parts and lines and blocking and songs to memorize.”
Although Second City bases one of its major training facilities out of Chicago, it travels and performs more than 400 shows a year both domestically and internationally. Both Thibodeaux and Linic went through Chicago’s conservatory program, developing lasting relationships as well as sharper improvisational skills.
“It’s just nice to be in an environment where there are so many like-minded people around,” Thibodeaux said. He remains friends with many of his classmates from his yearlong program at the training center.
Steven Boyd, Editor-in-Chief of The Pittiful News, a monthly satire paper at Pitt, went through Second City’s month-long intensive improv program — taught in part by Stephen Colbert’s former roommate — in Chicago in 2013.
“The Chicago scene is very much rooted in just developing the raw talent for being onstage,” Boyd said.
Boyd said part of the skill of improv learning is “how to progress a storyline without having any rules.”
All three Second City performers said nearly the same thing about the challenges of improv — it’s all about intuition and “getting out of your head,” as Beasley put it. Overthinking devastates improv, Beasley said, and the simple task of walking can become a gargantuan feat.
“If someone asks you to ‘walk normally,’ it’s almost impossible to do it. There’s just so much going on – where to put your legs, what your arms are doing, how much breathing is too much, the pace. Improv, likewise, is easiest when you just do it,” Linic said.
The cast, despite the particular challenges of their unusual work, finds inspiration in the many great talents that have preceded them.
Linic and Thibodeaux still find it hard to believe that they’re doing what their heroes did.
“Every once in a while you have to stop and look around and realize how lucky you are,” Thibodeaux said. He grew up loving Saturday Night Live and became interested in Second City once he realized where his favorite performers were coming from.
For the indifferent and unmoved in the Pittsburgh scene, Thibodeaux said those who see the show will receive “a renewed sense of community.”
Beasley is equally optimistic about the show’s reception.
“It’s an experience. I’m trying to think of another way to say extremely fun, but that is a statement in itself … and it’s good to just laugh,” Beasley said, urging yinzers to “start off the New Year doing something different and just having some fun.”
*Published in The Pitt News / January 4th, 2015