Pitt-Greensburg Celebrates the Power of Storytelling in the Age of Robots

GREENSBURG, PA – Writers, poets, digital storytellers and more will celebrate the life-affirming, human power of stories at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg on Wednesday, Dec. 3 from 6-8 p.m. in McKenna Hall 131.
 
The event, “What’s Your (Human) Story? A Storytelling Showcase” will bring together students and faculty storytellers to share their work. The event is free and open to the public. A reception, book-and-swag table, and a free-typewriter-poem station will accompany the readings.
 
“Our students love many writers, but one who is dear to them is John Green,” says Lori Jakiela, professor of Creative & Professional Writing. “John Green tells young writers to read a lot and write a lot, but he says the most important thing is to tell stories and listen closely to the stories of others. Stories, the uniquely human tradition, mean so much.”
 
Jakiela and Dave Newman, assistant professor of Creative & Professional Writing, organized and will host the event. Jakiela is the author of eight books, including her 2025 essay collection, “All Skate: True Tales from Middle Life” (Roadside Press) and the memoir, “Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe” (Autumn House Press), which received Stanford University’s Saroyan Prize for International Literature. Newman is the Pushcart-Prize winning author of 10 books, including the 2024 story collection, “She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall” (Roadside Press), which has been longlisted for the Northern Appalachia Book of the Year award.

Together, the award-winning writers, who are also married and can be seen on the PBS Pittsburgh documentary “People Who’ve Written Books Around Here,” helm the Pitt-Greensburg Creative & Professional Writing Program. Newman will be hosting the showcase as master of ceremonies, while Jakiela will be writing free typewriter poems for anyone who needs one.
 
“Storytelling is, most of all, a way to bring us together in a world that feels bent on tearing us apart,” Jakiela says. “Writing a poem for someone, listening to their stories and what’s in their hearts, feels communal and healing.”
 
The way Pitt-Greensburg builds that sense of community for writers is something Newman, a distinguished alumnus who graduated from Pitt-Greensburg in the 90s, knows a lot about.
 
“As a working-class kid who dreamed of being a writer, I found my home at Pitt-Greensburg a long time ago,” Newman says. “So many of the books I discovered while I was a student were rooted in place, but not this place we call home. We read about the American South. We read about New York. Now there are writers like Richard Gegick, who grew up in Trafford and manages a bar. He writes wonderful poems about those things. We have Adam Matcho, a Pitt-Greensburg graduate, with a couple of wonderful books about working retail sales and gas-station food jobs, about working at Walmart and Monroeville Mall. I love teaching, but I’m happiest when I see students and former students out in the world, in magazines, and performing in readings around the city. These showcases are great launching pads for our writers to join the greater literary world.”
 
The line-up for the evening includes:
 

• Creative Nonfiction Writers: Ali Brown, Phoenix Bryant, Will McCabe, Addi Patrick

• Digital Storytellers: Peyton Hause, Ashlie Keogh, Jordan Shuster

• Poets: Kate Cramer, Amanda Booth, Angeline Pommier, Abby Morrow, Hayden Glasgow

• Fiction Writer: Jeremy Zulka