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Sep 15
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Welcoming Sony Ton-Aime

By News

Photo credit Dave Munch

Dear friends,

We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Sony Ton-Aime as the new Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures. This announcement concludes an extensive national search process led by our board to find the ideal candidate to lead our organization into the future.

In his most recent role as Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution, Sony has spearheaded innovative programming and built partnerships to engage the community. He coordinates online and in-person lectures and workshops, supervises staff, and runs a poetry makerspace and bookstore that serve over 100,000 community members annually.

Sony has demonstrated skill in collaboration and relationship building, forging partnerships with organizations like the African American Heritage House to launch the Mirror Project Reading Circle, monthly book discussion that has since evolved to include lectures by experts and a countywide book read. Sony worked with Jamestown High School to lead student writing workshops, and he partnered with the local radio station to broadcast the writing of their students.

Through collaboration within Chautauqua, Sony has brought acclaimed authors like Matthew Desmond and Elizabeth Kolbert to speak in the 4,000-seat Amphitheater. In response to the perceived deterioration of civil discourse in our country, Sony brought together literary organizations to pilot the Forum on Democracy at Chautauqua Institution, with a lineup of speakers that includes Sayu Bhojwani, David Blight, Suzanne Nossel, and Michael Waldman.

The board of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures comments, “We welcome Sony with enthusiasm and are eager for him to join as the next Executive Director, building on his experience from Chautauqua. We know he will continue the strong legacy of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures and be a great ambassador for literature, artists, and the City of Pittsburgh.”

Sony remarks, “the staff, led by my remarkable predecessor, Stephanie Flom, has done an amazing job to bring Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures to where it is now, and I feel lucky to be part of this legacy. I feel lucky for two reasons—first, as Executive Director I am presented with a firm foundation to build on, and second, because the city of Pittsburgh has the best and most serious readers.

“I look forward to facilitating the deep connections that authors and readers seek out when they write and read books. Our goal will be to engage our community in meaningful and critical conversations that, in time, will lead to real changes for the betterment of our city and country. Together, we will foster a place where our community can feel a deep sense of ownership and confidence in their engagement with our programs.”

Please join us in warmly welcoming Sony Ton-Aime to Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures! His start date is Monday, October 2. Sony will greet Ten Evenings subscribers from the stage of the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall at our lecture with Matthew Desmond. We hope to see you at a lecture soon.

Sincerely,

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Board and Staff

Feb 07
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Executive Director Stephanie Flom Announces Retirement

By News

Dear Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures Community,

Stephanie Flom, who joined the organization in May 2014, will pass the baton in June. She will see out the exciting programming that has defined the 2022-23 season and provide a smooth transition for the next executive director. The board congratulates Flom on her retirement from the organization and thanks her for her outstanding leadership over the past decade.

Reflecting upon her tenure, Flom says, “I’ve been able to bring my full self to this role — my passion for the arts, for the community, and for the values that now reside in the organization’s mission statement. My curatorial choices, and the culture that I’ve nurtured here, embody artistic excellence, justice, equity, courage and compassion.”

Board President Kevin Lavelle comments, “The board is proud of the success of the organization under Stephanie’s leadership, and thanks her for her tireless efforts to bring world-class thought leaders and artists to engage in discourse with our community. She led us to expect consistently full-to-capacity halls for our Ten Evenings series, robust community participation through the Authors to Schools program, and new and expanded program series. Through the pandemic, she led the staff to execute high-quality virtual programs, engaging our audience and securing important funding to ensure a strong foundation amidst turbulent times.” The organization now presents close to 40 public lectures each year, having grown to five signature series: Ten Evenings, New & Noted, Made Local, Words & Pictures, and Poets Aloud.


Driven by her passion to connect the community and the arts, Flom has formed meaningful partnerships with organizations whose missions reflect the theme of visiting authors’ works. These relationships have integrated the community in various forms that include co-presenters and sponsorships, school and community visits, and awareness campaigns for nonprofit partners. Flom notes, “I am especially moved when I learn from an audience member or an educational partner that a profound, life-changing impact has occurred upon hearing the words of an author at a lecture or during a school visit.” She is most proud that author visits to schools and to community groups have become a vital component of the organization’s work. Through the Authors to Schools program, thousands of students participate in visits each year, and more than 1,500 books are provided for students at participating Title 1 schools and community organizations.

A visionary leader, Flom built her career in roles and by achievements in many positions across the Pittsburgh arts community, each notable for their valuable partnerships. As the founding director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, she led the transformation of the long-vacant Regent Theater in East Liberty into a vibrant performing arts center. During her tenure as executive director of Dance Alloy, she relocated the contemporary dance company and community school to professional studios on Penn Avenue at the crossroads of Garfield and Friendship, again developing a community cultural asset while growing the company to six full-time dancers. Later, in her role as executive director of the Cooper-Siegel Community and Sharpsburg Community Libraries, Flom led efforts to build new state-of-the-art facilities that have a full range of library services. She was especially delighted to work with community partners to save the Sharpsburg Library from an impending closure. Flom was also a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s prestigious Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, where she developed the Persephone Project, an environmental art project that explored gardening as an everyday art form, recasting gardeners as artists. The project resulted in the commissioning of artists to create garden installations in Frank Curto Park on Bigelow Boulevard and neighborhoods throughout Pittsburgh.


As she shifts from her executive director role, Flom plans to engage in community projects related to the arts, the environment and social justice, and to spend time in her pottery studio, in her garden and with family and friends. Inspired by hearing hundreds of renowned authors speak about their creative process, she says, perhaps she will write.

“Stephanie has done an amazing job cultivating an unusually collaborative and positive staff and board culture,” Lavelle says. “We’re a dynamic team, and while she will be greatly missed, we look forward to a bright future, building on the momentum that Stephanie has helped create.” The board will undertake a national search for Flom’s replacement over the coming months.

Yours,

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Board and Staff

May 18
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Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

By News

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures to Receive $10,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures has been approved for a $10,000 Grant for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support public lecture events and community engagement opportunities with critically acclaimed authors on our Ten Evenings mainstage series and our free Poets Aloud and Words & Pictures series. Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures is among 1,125 projects across America totaling more than $26.6 million that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2022 funding.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the nation with these grants, including Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”

For more information on other projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
# # #

May 12
Love0

Where Pittsburgh Writers Can Meet Pittsburgh Readers

https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/where-pittsburgh-writers-can-meet-pittsburgh-readers/
May 10
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Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ Ten Evenings series features top authors

https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2022/05/10/pittsburgh-arts-lectures-ten-evenings-authors-series-2022-23/stories/202205100038
Apr 01
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Poetry Allowed

By Events

The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books presents Poetry Allowed

Join us for an all day live poetry reading event, sponsored by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures.

Registration is free, stay all day or pop in the tent to listen to as many poets as you’d like!

Saturday, May 14, 2022
10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Bakery Square, 6425 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Poets include:

  • Daniel Borzutzky
  • Paola Corso
  • Veronica Corpuz
  • Toi Derricotte
  • Lynn Emanuel
  • Celeste Gainey
  • Bri Griffith
  • Karen Howard
  • Carly Inghram
  • Michelle Gil-Montero
  • Danielle Orbisie-Orlu
  • Bonita Lee Penn
  • Judith R. Robinson
  • Kayla Sargeson
  • Michael Simms
  • Cameron Barnett
  • Michael Wurster
  • Robert Walicki
  • Elizabeth Hoover
  • Madwomen in the Attic
  • Soledad Caballero
  • Angele Ellis
  • Don Wentworth
  • Lori Jakiela
  • Aurielle Marie

Find other events on the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books website featuring Billy Porter, beloved local authors, and more.

Apr 19
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2021/2022 Ten Evenings Lineup

By Media

Pittsburgh Arts And Lectures Announces 2021/2022 Ten Evenings Lineup

By Jody DiPerna
Pittsburgh Current Senior Contributor
jody@pittsburghcurrent.com

More than a full year into the new reality of pandemic living, Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures has upped their game in order to serve literary Western Pennsylvania with a stunning line-up of writers as part of their Ten Evenings Series. The just announced 2021/2022 season presents local readers with opportunities to engage with writers who inform, entertain, transform and reimagine the spaces we occupy. Even when those spaces are virtual.

“There have been so many incredible books this past year that personally got me through the challenge and isolation of the pandemic. I think I’ll always reflect on these books differently than other books I’ve read in my life. I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way and I am just thrilled to present so many of these phenomenal authors this coming year,” Stephanie Flom told the Current via email. It was a difficult year for all arts organizations, but Flom, the Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, was buoyed by the response of her team and of the audience.

Isabel Wilkerson -(Photo: Joe Henson)

“We never could have imagined that we’d be presenting virtually throughout last season. And yet our resilient staff pulled it off and our audience was eager and grateful to continue to hear from the authors,” she said.

The folks at Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures learned a lot through feeling their way through their first virtual year; they overcame unexpected challenges, but also experienced moments of real connection, curiosity and compassion.

“The biggest surprise of the past year were the virtual high school visits. There was such an intimacy when the authors and the students (often in their bedrooms) are eye to eye on their zoom screen. We heard from more than one author that the student questions were among the best they’ve had,” according to Flom.

Ten Evenings will kick off in the fall with Brit Bennett, author of ‘The Vanishing Half,’ a searing novel about the cost of racial passing. The best-selling novel probes all of our conceptions and misconceptions about race, identity and place while telling a family story.

Lawrence Wright brings his gift for investigating the major events of our times to the present moment with his book, ‘The Plague Year:  America in the Time of COVID.’ Wright is the author of numerous books, including ‘The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,’ a comprehensive work about the failures of intelligence and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism that lead to the 9/11 attacks.

‘Hamnet’ was on every literary maven’s bookshelf, night stand or wish list this year. Maggie O’Farrell’s novel re-imagines the life and premature death of Shakespeare’s young son, Hamnet. This novel of a marriage reeling from grief while struggling through a pandemic feels exquisitely germane to this moment in our own time.

When Isabel Wilkerson published her masterwork, ‘The Warmth of Other Suns:  The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,’ in 2010, she knocked everybody sideways. She brings that same prodigious talent to her 2020 release, ‘Caste:  The Origins of Our Discontents,’ described by the New York Times as ‘an instant American classic.’ It is just that.

With ‘Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants,’ Robin Kimmerer blends poetry and prose, botany and environmental advocacy into a wholly mesmerizing collection of essays. Kimmerer is a trained botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her illuminates the synergistic marriage of humans and the planet we occupy in a way that makes all things feel possible. She has said, “If we think about our responsibilities as gratitude, giving back and being activated by love for the world, that’s a powerful motivator.”

For many of us, books are as essential to surviving the pandemic as masks and hand sanitizer. They provide a way to live in the world while sheltering at home. Reading has always allowed us to explore with our minds, even if we’re firmly seated at home. It feels more indispensable than ever to connect through the written world.

The programming for the 2021/2022 season is an all-star lineup of the most talked about books and the most essential voices. Like most of us, Flom still keeps the fire burning towards that day when we go off-line and back into physical spaces together.

“My hope is that we can return to in-person lectures in 2022. I’ve literally been dreaming about it; there is a true euphoria, a triumphant joy, resonating throughout the Music Hall,” she said.

 

Ten Evenings Lineup for 2021/2022 

  • Brit Bennett, author of ‘The Vanishing Half’ — Monday, September 20, 2021
  • Charles Yu, author of ‘Interior Chinatown’ — Monday, October 18, 2021
  • Lawrence Wright, author of ‘The Plague Year:  America in the Time of COVID’ — Monday, November 8, 2021
  • Maggie O’Farrell, author of ‘Hamnet’ — Monday, November 22, 2021
  • Yaa Gyasi, author of ‘Transcendent Kingdom’ — Monday, December 6, 2021
  • Douglas Stuart, author of ‘Shuggie Bain’ — Monday, January 24, 2022
  • Ayad Akhtar, author of ‘Homeland Elegies’ — Monday, February 21, 2022
  • George Saunders, author of ‘A Swim in a Pond in the Rain’ — Monday, March 21, 2022
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ — Monday, April 11, 2022
  • Isabel Wilkerson, author of ‘Caste’ — Monday, May 9, 2022
Jun 24
Love0

NEA gives $10,000 grant to Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures

https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/art-architecture/2020/06/24/NEA-grant-Pittsburgh-Arts-Lectures-Melissa-Sweet-Entrada-Kelly/stories/202006170126
Apr 07
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Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Announces 2020/21 Ten Evenings Season

By Events

Susan Choi / Monday, September 14, 2020 Trust Exercise
The author of five novels, Susan Choi won the 2019 National Book Award for Trust Exercise, an ingenious meditation on fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, the capacities of adolescents, and the powers of adults.

Terry Tempest Williams / Monday, October 12, 2020 Erosion: Essays of Undoing
Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. Erosion: Essays of Undoing, explores the forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust.

Laila Lalami / Monday, October 26, 2020 Conditional Citizens
Prize-winning novelist (The Moors Account, The Other Americans) Laila Lalami’s new book, Conditional Citizens, is a brilliantly argued and deeply personal work of non-fiction—a sobering investigation on the place of nonwhites in American culture.

Lily King / Monday, November 16, 2020 Writers & Lovers
Following her beloved, prize-winning novel, Euphoria, Lily King brings us Writers & Lovers, a masterful portrait of an artist as a young woman praised as “a story where absence is a constant presence, stitched with humor, determination and hope.”

Brian Greene / Monday, November 23, 2020 Until the End of Time
World-renowned physicist and award-winning, bestselling author Brian Greene writes to help us understand our Elegant Universe. Until the End of Time is a captivating exploration of the cosmos and our quest to find meaning in this vast expanse.

Ta-Nehisi Coates / Monday, December 7, 2020 The Water Dancer
An essential voice of our times, National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates has produced The Water Dancer, his bold debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.

David Treuer / Monday, January 18, 2021 The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
Anthropologist and author David Treuer combines history, reporting, and memoir to create the National Book Award Finalist, New York Times bestseller, and multiple Best Books of 2019 list-maker, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present.

Karen Russell / Monday, February 22, 2021 Orange World
Karen Russel is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia!, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, and Orange World—a stunning collection that showcases her extraordinary gifts of language and imagination.

Ocean Vuong / Monday, March 22, 2021 On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong is an award-winning poet and the author of the critically acclaimed, bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a work hailed as an “expansive and introspective, fragmented and dreamlike” coming of age story.

Bernardine Evaristo / Monday, April 5, 2021 Girl, Woman, Other
With Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo became the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize for Fiction. The novel is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity, across generations, in a group of Black British women.

The 2020/21 Ten Evenings series is presented by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, in association with Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. This is the 30th season of Pittsburgh’s literary lecture series. All programs are presented on Monday evenings at 7:30 pm in Oakland’s historic Carnegie Music Hall.

Subscriptions for the 2020/21 Ten Evenings season will be available in May and single tickets go on sale July 6. More information is available by visiting pittsburghlectures.org or emailing info@pittsburghlectures.org.

Mar 16
Love1

Events Impacted by COVID-19

By News

The staff and board of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures deeply appreciates your patience and understanding during this time as we work with both our authors and our audience members. Please email us at info@pittsburghlectures.or if you have any questions.

Ten Evenings

All Ten Evenings lecture tickets for the September 2020 through April 2021 lecture season will include a virtual option. If we cannot be together in person for a scheduled lecture, we will work with the author to create a virtual event viewable from home. If the lecture proceeds as scheduled, we will make livestreaming an option for those who prefer to view from home.

Video links will be emailed to all ticket holders on the day of the scheduled lecture.

Subscriptions for the full season are available and single tickets go on sale July 6, 2020 at 10 a.m.

Rescheduled Lectures:

Stephen Heyman’s free Made Local lecture had been rescheduled for Thursday, August 13, 2020 as a virtual event.

Robin DiAngelo’s lecture scheduled for April 14th has been rescheduled for Thursday, September 10, 2020 as a virtual event. All previous tickets will be honored for the new date. Ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the lecture on Thursday, September 10, 2020. You may share this link, which will be available to view for one week, with your seatmates.

Jodi Kantor’s lecture scheduled for April 27th has been rescheduled for Monday, November 30, 2020. All previous tickets will be honored for the new date. If we cannot gather in person according to the CDC’s guidelines Jodi Kantor will record a virtual event video for everyone to watch at home. If we are able to gather in person we will also livestream the lecture for all ticket holders who do not wish to come to the lecture hall.

Mo Rocca’s event scheduled for March 30th has been rescheduled for Monday, November 2, 2020 as a virtual event. All previous tickets will be honored for the new date. Ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the lecture on Monday, November 2, 2020. You may share this link, which will be available to view for one week, with your seatmates. Each ticket includes a copy of Mobituaries which will be shipped to your home by Mystery Lovers Bookshop, with a bookplate signed by Mo Rocca. If you need to change the address for the shipment of your book(s) please email us at info@pittsburghlectures.org.

If you’d like to request a refund in advance of these rescheduled dates please email us at info@pittsburghlectures.org.

Previously Scheduled Events

Michael Ondaatje and David Sibley’s lectures were presented virtually. Thank you to all who joined us!

Our Made Local and Poets Aloud events with Autumn House and Toi Derricotte will be rescheduled at a later date.

Anne Enright’s lecture on Monday, March 16th was cancelled – All ticket holders for this event have been emailed directly and refunded.

With our gratitude,
Stephanie's signature

 

 

 

 

Stephanie Flom
Executive Director
Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures

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