I’ll be signing books at his year’s Books in the Burgh event at the Heinz History Museum in Pittsburgh. The fun starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, December 1, and runs until 3 p.m. The museum books store has plenty of copies of Veins, Vipers, Visions, Voices, and This Way to Egress on hand. I’ll also have copies of the ambient-rock / spoken word CD Veins: The Soundtrack.
It seems that most of the other books on display will be nonfiction, with a good number of them either dealing with sports or history — which makes sense for a center that also houses the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.
Here’s what Katie Zak of WESA has to say about the event:
From fiction to food, from history to science fiction, from sports to poetry, from biographies to artwork, the Heinz History Center this weekend will host the 11th annual “Books in the Burgh” holiday book fair. Visitors to the event will have the opportunity to meet and greet local authors.
History Center spokesman Brady Smith said the event has experienced great turnouts each year and he expects a similar response on Saturday. “I think it’s so popular because we feature more than 50 local authors and a lot of their titles deal with various Pittsburgh topics, or Western Pennsylvania topics from sports just to local history,” Smith said.
In addition to various author talks throughout the day, there will a special discussion with forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wright, who worked closely on the JKF assassination investigation and other famous cases.
Smith said although some of the authors in attendance aren’t native to Pittsburgh, the local community will recognize their names.
“Anybody from local media personalities like Dave Crawley, or Chuck Finder, Jim O’Brien, people that Pittsburghers know in the media,” Smith said. Also, Pirates’ announcer Steve Blass will be there, former Steelers linebacker Andy Russell, so it’s people that Pittsburghers know well,” he said.
The History Center will also launch a new book—”The Civil War in Pennsylvania: A Photographic History.” The three authors will discuss how they uncovered of rate and never-before-seen Civil War images which are in the book.
Several other authors will also present talks during Saturday’s event which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free to the “Books in the Burgh” fair, but regular admission prices apply for all History Center exhibits.
Those exhibits are definitely something I intend to check out, especially since one of them features Electro and Sparko — the man and dog robots from the 1939 World’s Fair.
Although not much by today’s standards, this mid-20th century robot could, walk, speak, and smoke cigarettes. Last time I checked, that’s more than Asimo does.
I know the museum also has plenty of sports related exhibits, but I’ll leave those to the contingent of sports writers and fans who will be on hand for the fair.
As the event’s token sf / fantasy writer, I’m planning on checking out the robots.
Hope to see you there.
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