A reading to celebrate Pittsburgh Poet Charlie Brice new collection! He'll be joined by Jay Carson, miss macross, and Matthew Ussia

We hope you can join us in person, but if you are unable to make it the event will be livestreamed. If you will be attending virtually please select the "virtual" option when you RSVP. A zoom link will be sent to guests in advance of the event.

Don’t read this book in a hushed library or art museum. And don’t even think about it if you’re at a funeral. There are bust-out-laughing high jinks going on in Miracles that Keep Me Going, beginning with its prologue poem “Hot Poems to Go” where poem is pizza. Humor, wonderfully irreverent humor is Brice’s strong suit. He uses it to great effect and is fearless, taking on the philosophical, psychological, psychoanalytical, religious, political, and personal.

---Diane Kerr, author of Perigee

Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. Miracles That Keep Me Going (WordTech, 2023) is his seventh full-length poetry collection. His poetry has been nominated three times for both the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere.

Jay Carson holds a doctorate in English/rhetoric from Carnegie-Mellon University. He taught for many years at Robert Morris University where he was a founding advisor to the literary magazine, Rune. He has published more than 100 poems and a number of short stories in local and national journals, magazines, and collections. Jay is also the author of Irish Coffee (Coal Hill Press) and The Cinnamon of Desire (Main Street Rag). He is presently working on a memoir. Jay considers his work Appalachian, accessible, the ongoing problem-solving of a turbulent life, and just what you might need.

miss macross is a Pittsburgh-based lunar witch who enjoys watching mecha anime and taking naps. Her most recent chapbook, Late Tight in a Night Space, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. She is the Publishing Director for Write Pittsburgh and inconsistently blogs at missmacross.com.

Matthew Ussia is director of Duquesne University’s First Year Writing Program in spite of the fact that he got a C- in freshman writing and was rejected from Duquesne’s MA program. He is also an editor, podcaster, post-doom thereminist, softcore punk, postpunk backup singer, social media burnout, and sentient organic matter. His first book, The Red Glass Cat, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021. His writings have appeared in Mister Rogers and Philosophy, Future Humans in Fiction and Film, North of Oxford, Trailer Park Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, and The Open Mic of the Air Podcast among others.