Youngstown has a rich literary history, and this series will showcase the incredible writers who call or have called Youngstown home. This benefit series will help Lit Youngstown sustain the literary programming that has engaged thousands of readers, writers and those who love a good story. Click here to register for the reading, with an option to purchase signed books. Thank you for your support, and enjoy and unforgettable event.
Our series will kick off with Ross Gay (born in Youngstown) & Rochelle Hurt (grew up in Youngstown), moderated by Fall Literary Festival '19 feature Philip Memmer, founder of the Syracuse YMCA Downtown Writers Center and member of Lit Youngstown's Advisory Board.
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His first collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller. His new collection of essays, Inciting Joy, was released by Algonquin in October of 2022. Ross lives in Bloomington and teaches at Indiana University. Rochelle Hurt is the author of the poetry collections The J Girls: A Reality Show (Indiana University Press, 2022); In Which I Play the Runaway (Barrow Street, 2016); and The Rusted City (White Pine, 2014). She lives in Orlando and teaches at the University of Central Florida. Poet, editor and teacher Philip Memmer is the author of six books of poems: Cairns (2022); Pantheon (2019); The Storehouses of the Snow: Psalms, Parables and Dreams (2012); Lucifer: A Hagiography (2009), which was awarded the 2008 Idaho Prize for Poetry from Lost Horse Press; Threat of Pleasure (2008), winner of the Adirondack Literary Award for Poetry; and Sweetheart, Baby, Darling (2004).