Featured Events in Forbes in April, 2025 (August Updated)

The year 2025 marks August Wilson’s 80th Birthday and the 20th anniversary of his death. As one of the nation’s foremost literary figures, his body of work has and continues to influence literary figures and artists while simultaneously expanding audiences as a result of his lasting critical and commercial success. In honor of Wilson’s secured legacy and his continuous renewal of one of America’s greatest documentarians of the African American experience, the August Wilson Society, in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Library System, will host the 2025 Biennial Colloquium, Celebrating 20 Years: August Wilson’s Legacy and The Confluence of Voices in Literary and Cultural Expression. Colloquium Highlights: Keynote Speaker, Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green, Professor of Theatre and Africana Studies, University Professor of Teaching Excellence, Provost Faculty Fellow, William and Mary Special Performance Presentation by the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company,Directed by Mark Clayton Southers Tour of theAugust Wilson: Writer’s Landscape Exhibit at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center Visit the August Wilson Archive located in the Hillman Library Research Opportunity: The following form is for attendees of the 2025 August Wilson Society Colloquium who are interested in doing research using the August Wilson Archive on Saturday, April 5, 2025. The archive is located in Hillman Library on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. By completing this form, you are confirming that you will be in Pittsburgh on this day and available for your research session. Please note there is limited capacity, and sessions will only be held if a minimum of 5 researchers sign up for that session. There will be a morning session and an afternoon session, so please select the one session that best aligns with your anticipated schedule for the day. https://tinyurl.com/augustwilsonarchiveresearch Hotel Information: Hilton Garden Inn University, 3454 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA Place Hotel Rates: $169 single/night and $179 double/night (Hotel accommodations include daily complimentary breakfast and one complimentary drink ticket in the hotel bar each evening.) Reserve your discounted hotel room using the following link: HiltonGardenInn_2025AWSColloquium The Deadline to book colloquium hotel is Wednesday, March 12. Information Source: August Wilson Society | eventbrite

Riverstone Books is pleased to host a book launch for The Doors You Can Open by local author, Rosalind Chow. Following the discussion with Evan Frazier, we will have a time for Q&A with the audience and book signing. Refreshments will be provided. Want to pre-order your copy of the book? You can do so here. About the book: “Chow revolutionizes our understanding of how careers advance” (Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Drive), taking readers on a transformative journey beyond the standard model of mentorship to embracing sponsorship. The way we currently network and engage in mentorship isn’t working. Given the ever-evolving nature of the workplace, transactional networking and company-enforced mentorship programs simply don’t help make our professional relationships more authentic or our workplaces more equitable. What we need instead is sponsorship. What’s the difference between mentorship and sponsorship? Mentorship involves helping a mentee change their behavior, while sponsorship involves changing how other people see a protégé. Sponsorship is as important, if not more so, than mentorship in determining who gets ahead, making it a more effective way to promote social equality and inclusion in the workplace. In The Doors You Can Open, organizational expert Rosalind Chow shows readers that they likely already engage in sponsorship in their personal and professional networks—and how they can channel those skills to build more authentic professional relationships. We all have more agency and deeper networks to act as sponsors than we might think, and sponsoring others can lead to mutually beneficial lifelong connections rather than merely transactional interactions. Given the ever-evolving nature of the workplace, intentional and equitable sponsorship is more important now than ever for overturning traditional social hierarchies. Based on decades of original research, The Doors You Can Open makes a bold case for completely changing the way we network. Reading it will change how we see and use our relationships in the service of creating stronger workplaces for all. About the author: Dr. Rosalind Chow is an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon University, where she directs executive education programs that advance the careers of Black and Latino professionals and advises corporations on their sponsorship programs. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their two children. About the conversation partner: Evan Frazier is a corporate executive, nonprofit leader, entrepreneur, author and family man. He has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. He is currently the president and CEO of The Advanced Leadership Institute and sits on the Dollar Bank Board of Directors. Frazier has served as a trustee or board member for more than 30 community agencies and civic organizations over the years. Current nonprofit board affiliations include Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh (Life Trustee), Bender Leadership Academy, the Pennsylvania Society, and board advisor to the Alliance for Hospitality Equity & Diversity (AHED). In addition to receiving formal degrees from Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University, in March 2017 Frazier completed the Wharton Executive Development Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he also earned executive education certificates from Harvard Business School's Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. In 2008, Frazier launched his first book entitled Most Likely to Succeed: The Frazier Formula for Success®, which introduced his personal success framework to inspire youth and young adults to achieve. He is a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh, a BMe Community leader, member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Co-founder of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality (NSMH) and he currently serves as Chair of the NSMH Legacy Fund Group. Evan lives in the Greater Pittsburgh area with his wife Dr. Holly Hatcher-Frazier (educator and national television personality) and their children Evan Jr, Nia and William. Information Source: Riverstone Books | eventbrite

Join us in 2025 for the Drawing Symposium at the National Art School, presented by the National Centre for Drawing. Featuring a diverse range of national and international speakers, as well as associated performances and exhibitions, this event is held in conjunction with the Dobell Drawing Prize #24. The symposium will explore the theme of Facture, a concept that emphasises an artwork’s tangible reality as an intentionally crafted object, linking the act of creation directly to its physical presence. Considering an artwork in terms of its facture reveals it as a record of the artist’s decisions, methods, and materials. Discussions will examine how this concept enriches our understanding of drawing and aligns with contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches to art-making. Learn more about the schedule and speakers here. Information Source: National Art School | eventbrite

Srikanth Reddy, acclaimed poet, University of Chicago professor, and poetry editor for The Paris Review, will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform his work at the International Poetry Forum. The reading will take place at the Carnegie Lecture Hall at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland (4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213). This event is part of the relaunch season of the International Poetry Forum, which originally hosted over 800 poets and performers from 50+ countries in Pittsburgh between 1966-2009. Alumni of our reading series including legends like Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mary Oliver, Chinua Achebe, Kurt Vonnegut, Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, James Earl Jones, and Queen Noor of Jordan. Parking is located at Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. For detailed information on parking and bus routes, visit here. Poet Bio: Srikanth Reddy’s latest book of poetry, Underworld Lit, was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s T.S. Eliot Four Quartets Prize, and a Times Literary Supplement “Book of the Year” for 2020. He is also the author of Voyager, named one of the best books of poetry in 2011 by The New Yorker, The Believer, and National Public Radio. Reddy’s writing has appeared in Harper’s, The Guardian (UK), The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Reddy is the poetry editor of The Paris Review, and a co-editor of the Phoenix Poets book series at the University of Chicago Press. Professor of English at the University of Chicago, Reddy has been the recipient of fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the NEA. His book of lectures on poetry and painting, The Unsignificant, was published by Wave Books in September 2024. Information Source: International Poetry Forum | eventbrite

Local author John Pistelli joins us to talk about his new book, Major Arcana. After the talk we will have time for Q&A with the audience and book signing. We can't wait to see you there! Want to pre-order your copy of the book? You can do so here. About the book: Perhaps the elusive great American novel for the twenty-first century. It begins with a gunshot: a student's public suicide on a university campus. The blast radius of this tragic explosion expands to encompass 50 years of our history and two of the grandest characters in recent American fiction: Simon Magnus, a comic-book writer who transfigured popular culture turned gender activist who transfigures the English language, and Ash del Greco, an online occultist who by the age of 20 has seen to the end of everything and wants desperately to prove the superiority of mind over matter. With a decades-spanning but tightly-knit plot, written in an expansive style, Major Arcana canvasses America's inner life and moral history from coast to coast and across two generations in a delirious saga about art, magic, love, and death. Originally serialized on the author's Substack newsletter, Major Arcana is a novel about the transformative power of popular culture. With a nod to Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Pistelli reimagines the expansive novel for the 21st century. About the author: John Pistelli is the author of bestselling Substack Grand Hotel Abyss, home of a regular newsletter called Weekly Readings and the literary podcast The Invisible College, as well as the eight-year archive of an award-winning literary blog at johnpistelli.com. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Minnesota and has been writing and teaching for almost two decades. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Information Source: Riverstone Books | eventbrite

Come along to Forbes Skatepark to attend our FREE Learn to Skate Workshop thanks to Forbes Shire Council. Learn to skate beginner class and Mentoring skate session. This workshop is a Youth Week 2025 initiative for ages 12 to 24 years. SCHEDULE 10:00 am: Event opening 10:00 am - 10:15 am: Beginner class registration 10:15 am - 11:15 am: Beginner class (1hr class. Suitable for newcomer and beginner skaters with little to no experience on a board and at a skatepark.) 11:15 am - 11:20 am: Skate Demo 11:20 am - 11:30 am: Community Interaction 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Mentoring Session for Intermediate Skaters registration 11:45 am - 12:45 am: Mentoring Session for Intermediate Skaters (1hr class. Suitable for skaters that know the foundational skills and want to start exploring tricks and advance to the next level.) 12:45 am - 1:00 pm Community Interaction / Close program hand out Stickers Please note: Times may vary on the day. IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ WAIVER FORM - Participants must complete our online waiver form here before they can skate. Please try to have this done before you get to the skatepark.THE WAIVER FORM IS NOT A TICKET. Spots are limited and bookings are essential via Eventbrite. * This is an outdoor event. Postponement and cancellation is subject to weather conditions and can happen anywhere from 48 hours to 2 hours before a workshop. We cannot skate in the rain or on wet grounds. Equipment: Professional grade equipment; skateboard, helmet, and safety pads (optional) are provided for all classes. You are also welcome to bring your own equipment. This workshop is proudly funded by Forbes Shire Council. For any questions, you can reach us via email at bookings@totemskateboarding.com Information Source: TOTEM SKATEBOARDING | eventbrite

Local Author Brenda Tate joins us for a talk on her book Journal of a Black Woman in Blue. Following the talk, we will have a time for Q&A with the audience and book signing. About the book: Brenda Tate’s personal journal is a painfully honest account of the struggles she faced as a child and young woman, enduring rape, molestations, and abuse-traumas that led her on a path of self-destruction until she was able to face her demons head-on. She served forty years in Pittsburgh as a police officer while being heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. This African-American woman’s story reflects how she navigated a racist and sexist police department while struggling with her addiction. Relying on her strong faith and the support of AA, she achieved sobriety and rose in her career to protect presidents, kings and queens, and dignitaries such as Rosa Parks and the Dalai Lama. She is actively retired and remains a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District. She is a revered community leader and activist serving her city, state, and its residents, with a special emphasis on seniors. Brenda Tate is living proof that you can triumph over even the most incredible odds and that you need not be defined by your mistakes. Her journey to recovery will stay with you for a long time. Writing this journal took tremendous courage, but she hopes that by exposing her own soul, her story would be a source of inspiration to others. About the author: Brenda Tate served 40 years in Pittsburgh as a police officer, while struggling with addiction. She is now a revered community leader in Pittsburgh and lifelong resident of the historic Hill District. Her journal is a raw and open account of the struggles she faced as a child and young woman enduring rape, molestations and abuse that led her on a path of self-destruction, until she was able to face it head on. It is a story of an African-American woman who navigated a racist police department while being addicted to drugs and alcohol, struggling with adversity. Through her recovery and strong faith, she rose in her career to protect presidents, kings, queens, Rosa Parks and the Dalai Lama, proving that you can move forward no matter the odds. Her journey of recovery and how she navigated her transition is one that will stay with you for a very long time. Her story proves that African-American women do not need be defined by their mistakes. This personally written journal of Brenda’s struggle and triumph has given her the courage to expose her own soul as a source of inspiration to others. Information Source: Riverstone Books | eventbrite

Shaheen Dil joins us to celebrate the launch of her new poetry collection - Letters to My Younger Self. She will be joined by three fellow poets, Robert Walacki, Judith Sanders, and Sharon Fagan McDermott, for a poetry reading. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the event. About the author: Shaheen Dil was born in Bangladesh and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Dil has published two full-length collections of poetry, Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016) and The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024.) She holds a BA from Vassar College, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Additional information is available on her website: shaheendil.com. About Sharon Fagan McDermott: Sharon Fagan McDermott is a poet and essayist who teaches at Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh. She has four collections of poetry--most recently Life Without Furniture (Jacar Press). Her first collection of essays, Millions of Suns: On Writing and Life, co-authored by M. Christine Benner Dixon and published by the University of Michigan Press in Nov. 2023, celebrates the joy of living a life engaged with creative writing. Poets and Writers Magazine called Millions of Suns one of the Best Books for Writers. About Judith Sanders: Judith Sanders’ debut poetry collection In Deep was published by Kelsay Books; her second, The Universe with Borscht, is forthcoming from Kelsay in Fall 2025. Her work appears in numerous journals, anthologies, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her poems won the Hart Crane and Wergle Flomp Humor prizes. Her prose has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and selected as a Longreads “Top 5.” She earned a B.A. in literature from Yale, an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in English from Tufts. She taught English at universities and independent schools, and in France on a Fulbright Fellowship. She lives in Pittsburgh. About Robert Walicki: Robert Walicki's poems have appeared in over 50 journals. A two-time Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee,Robert's second chapbook. The Almost Sound of Snow Falling was included in the exhibition catalog for New York's Poet's House, and his latest full-length poetry collection is Fountain from Main Street Rag Press. His forthcoming poetry collection, Watershed, will be published by Broadstone Press. Information Source: Riverstone Books | eventbrite

Join the National Art School’s exhibition curator Lucy Latella for a floortalk about the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize. Art Forum The NAS Art Forum is a weekly public lecture intended to enrich the school community with contributions by guest speakers on a broad range of subjects considered to be of interest to NAS staff, students and the public. Previous speakers have included notable art industry professionals on subjects covering visual arts, cultural theory and humanities. NAS Forum lectures are held Wednesday lunchtime from 12.45 – 1.30pm during teaching weeks. Image credit: Hannah Cooper, Topographies of light (loom sketch) (detail), 2024, nylon monofilament, gold leaf thread, image courtesy the artist and Jennings Kerr, NSW © the artist, photograph: Hannah Cooper Information Source: National Art School | eventbrite