Musicians and poets Dora Odarenko, Jan Hamilton and Mike Schneider will be stopping by the Penguin to perform music and poetry during Sewickley Night Mart. They will have books available for signing and purchase, too.
DORA ODARENKO is a poet, teacher, pastor, and former farmer. She holds degrees from Barnard, Columbia, and Yale, and has taught at Columbia as well as in Harlem, Fairfield County, CT, and inner-city Bridgeport and New Haven. Since her recent move to Pittsburgh, her poems have been published in Pittsburgh Quarterly, Eco-Justice for All, Rune, US 1 and by Anhinga Press. She is a member of several writing groups, including the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. Her poems are conversations with places she has known, the natural world, and those striving for earth care and justice.
JAN HAMILTON was a classical violinist and psychology grad student at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University and Duquesne University before immersing herself in American, Scots and Irish fiddling. Early stylistic inspiration included old-time performers Melvin Wine, Tommy Jarrell, Allan Block and Highwoods String Band. A member of the Run-of-the-Mill String Band before joining the well known, Pittsburgh-based Celtic-fusion band Devilish Merry, Jan has performed in London, England with Jordan’s Dead Roses and throughout Western Pennsylvania for a vast array of community events from poetry readings and art happenings to festivals and museum programs.
MIKE SCHNEIDER began writing during the Vietnam War when, while serving at an air force base in Ohio, he published an anti-war “underground” newspaper. He has won awards for magazine writing, including book reviews and cultural essays for periodicals, and has published poems in many literary journals, anthologies and three chapbooks. His full-length poetry collection Spring Mills came out this year. Three times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, he received the 2012 Editors Award from The Florida Review and the 2016 Robert Phillips Prize from Texas Review Press. In September, the Hungry Hill Writing Group in West Cork, Ireland awarded Schneider second prize in its Poets Meet Politics 2022 International Open.