Janine Molinaro Bayer

Professor and Chair, English at La Roche University. Author of Before the Pen Runs Dry: A Literary Biography of Samuel Hazo

In her book Before the Pen Runs Dry: A Literary Biography of Samuel Hazo, she tells the story of this fascinating man’s life and career.  

Janine has created and continues to maintain Sam Hazo’s website.  www.samhazopoet.com

A brief book description. Through the lens of Samuel Hazo’s engaging poems, Janine Molinaro tells the story of this fascinating man’s life and career. Facilitated by extensive interviews with the poet and deeply moving excerpts from his personal journals, Molinaro provides insights into Hazo’s family history, childhood, military service, and teaching career; his forty-three-year stewardship of the International Poetry Forum, which brought more than eight hundred international poets and performers to the city of Pittsburgh; his beloved wife Mary Anne and son Sam; and his views on politics, education, love, friendship, mortality, war, gender, poetry, and a host of other topics.

The book captures pivotal periods and significant events in Hazo’s life that shaped the person and writer he became as well as the remarkable individuals who added meaning and vibrancy to his life’s collage. Candid, wise, and conversational, Hazo’s poems are central to this pioneering biographical form―guiding the narrative as opposed to merely adorning or supporting it. Hazo once noted, “There are too many analytical books about authors and not many that see life as a story―which is what life is.” Before the Pen Runs Dry is such a story: an intimate portrait of the man who penned a lifetime of compelling and memorable poetry.

Cindy McDonald

For twenty-six years Cindy McDonald’s life whirled around a song and a dance. She was a professional dancer and choreographer. During that time, she choreographed many musicals and an opera for the Pittsburgh Savoyards. In 2011 she retired from her dance career to write. Under her real name, Cindy McDonald, she has written five mystery suspense books and five romantic suspense novels. In 2014 she added the pen name, C.S. McDonald and wrote the George the Pony children’s books for her grandchildren. When 2016 rolled around, she began a new venture in writing cozy mysteries: The Fiona Quinn Mysteries (currently eleven books in the series).  In 2019 The Owl’s Nest Mysteries, a time travel mystery series, debuted–currently, four books in that series. Both mystery series are Pittsburgh based.

Cindy McDonald Lives on her Thoroughbred farm known as Fly by Night Stables near Pittsburgh with her husband, Bill and her cocker spaniel, Allister.

A brief book description Cindy will be talking about her murder (cozy) mystery books: The Fiona Quinn Mysteries and The Owl’s Nest Mysteries. Both series take place in Pittsburgh. Therefore, many of the famous and not-so-famous venues are mentioned in the books.

 The Fiona Quinn Mysteries: Fiona Quinn is a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school I attended, Westwood Elementary, and she lives in the house I lived in during my childhood in the Westwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She is Pittsburgh’s most unlikely sleuth. The Owl’s Nest Mysteries are a newer venture in my writing. The Owl’s Nest Couturier Shoppe is located in the strip district. The proprietor of the shop is Alexa Owl who has returned home to open this business after a divorce, but when she arrives at her newly refurbished shop, she gets way more than she expected. An angel, Detective Bobby Starr, needs her help to solve three murders he left unresolved in order to get a spot in St. Peter’s Guardian Angel Squad. The only way to accomplish this goal is to travel back to the 50s and 60s, and Alexa is not crazy about that idea.

Lee Goldman Kikel

The daughter of a Jewish immigrant and Holocaust survivor, Lee Goldman Kikel grew up in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where she spent her early years at Wightman School, Taylor Allderdice High School, and her parents’ jewelry business. She later earned her BS in Psychology and master’s in Education from the University of Pittsburgh and worked in the mental health field as a rehabilitation counselor. Over five years, Lee worked to turn her father’s storytelling of his life through a series of recorded audio tapes into a book recounting the tragedy and hope of one survivor’s experience. A lifelong Pittsburgher, she resides in Hampton Township with her family.   

A brief book description: Perseverance is not only a story of survival but of the perseverance of the human spirit.  It is a story about life of Melvin Goldman.  A Jewish Polish Immigrant and Holocaust survivor who found his way to Pittsburgh and made a way for himself and his future family.  In Melvin’s words, “I asked myself a lot of questions, but I didn’t have any answers.  Still, I thought to myself, I will persevere, I will hold out, I will work like a decent and honest person.”  

Melvin’s Story is told through his own words and through the memories of his daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel.  Over five years, Lee worked to turn her father’s story–a telling of his life through a series of recorded audio tapes–into a book recounting the tragedy and hope of one survivor’s experience.