La Roche University Literary Society to host free poetry, book readings

The La Roche University Literary Society will host a free series of poetry and book readings beginning this month.

The series aims to teach lessons of perseverance and tell the story of Black theater in Pittsburgh, the literary society said.

The first event, dubbed “The World as We Know It Is Falling Away,” is slated for Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Ryan Room in the Zappala Campus Center at La Roche’s McCandless campus.

Jane Greer, a poet and founder of “Plains Poetry Journal,” will highlight the event. Greer will read from “The World as We Know It Is Falling Away,” her recently published third collection of poetry.

The society’s next event, “One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey,” is slated for Friday, Feb. 24, 2023 at 7 p.m. It also will be hosted in the Ryan Room in the Zappala Campus Center at the school.

Lee Goldman Kikel, whose father survived the Auschwitz ghetto encampment, will discuss the memoir she wrote about her father, titled “Perseverance: One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America.”

The final installment of the series, titled “Black Theater in Pittsburgh: A History,” is scheduled for Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7 p.m. at the Ryan Room in La Roche’s Zappala Campus Center.

A steelworker turned actor and director, Mark Clayton Southers will share stories of Black theater in Pittsburgh and his own experiences. He founded the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Playwrights Theater, he recently bought the elementary school he attended as his new theater in Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill District.

The La Roche University Literary Society launched in the early 1980s and aims to provide a forum for scholarship and discussion on literature and other topics.