Love stories are the theme and backdrop for McKeesport Community Newsroom’s final public event

It will be a bittersweet evening at the fifth annual Tube City Writers Live event on Wednesday at the Carnegie Library of McKeesport. 

The group — part of the McKeesport Community Newsroom, an initiative of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University — will read their stories and display their photographic work from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. The theme this year is McKeesport Love Stories, but this will be the final public event for the group. Project manager Martha Rial found out on July 19 that funding for the program has ended. It will close next month.

On the program’s section of the CMI website, it describes it as an initiative that supports citizen journalism and storytelling by residents of the Mon Valley’s largest city and surrounding areas. The Allegheny Foundation is listed as its funding source. Point Park’s director of public relations Lou Corsaro confirmed the funding is ending, and he said CMI director and assistant vice president Andy Conte had looked into ways to extend the program but did not find the financial resources to do that.

Conte, who is currently traveling, wrote in an email, “Allegheny Foundation allowed us to move some leftover monies from another grant. It was generous of them. The Pittsburgh Foundation also generously funded the newsroom for like five years. They should be celebrated.”

The drop-in writers group has met once a month at McKeesport’s Tube City Center, the former Daily News building that Trib Total Media gave to the city in late 2017. The Point Park program began there working with YouthCAST, and many of the writers have been part of the program before it officially started under Rial’s leadership in May 2019. Outside facilitators and guest speakers have come to help her teach the members — they range in age from 20 to 80 currently — journalistic writing and style as well as narrative and more creative formats. Rial has also worked with McKeesport Area High School students, especially those who are on the Red and Blue newspaper staff. Members of the group have contributed articles to the Mon Valley Independent, which has an office in the same building.

This year’s theme came from those members. “I let them pick it. I wanted them to take ownership,” Rial said. “Hey, they’re a romantic bunch. They are very optimistic. They believe in all the good things in life.”

Nine of them will read their stories aloud, which they have been working on for several months. Their portion of the website explains, “Our writers have been hard at work interviewing friends and family about this enduring but complicated emotion.”

A photography exhibit will also be part of the evening, including photographs several members took at outings over the past year such as Kennywood’s Holiday Lights.

Rial said the newsroom has worked closely throughout its tenure with the library, explaining that they are “our best partners in fighting disinformation.”

She continued, “They play an important role in sharing community information. It’s a place you know you can go to [not only] obtain knowledge but also to obtain information.”

And learn new skills, too. The newsroom just finished a drone photography workshop for teens this month, led by Lori Paluti, a Clairton resident who has her own drone business.  Eight young people took the four-day course.

The writers group has had its prior work published not only online on its website but also in book form. In Corona Diaries, the storytelling group explained what happened as they navigated uncertainty during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A paperback version of that work is available on Amazon.

Joining the group at Wednesday’s library event is Matt Petras, who has been working with members on interviewing and writing this past year. He has been an adjunct professor at Chatham University and the University of Pittsburgh and writes freelance articles for a diverse number of media outlets, including PublicSource, Pittsburgh City Paper, the Mon Valley Independent and The Comics Journal.

Rial said as she looks forward to this event and works on the group’s final sessions she is doing so with a mix of emotions. “We’ve had a lot of success. The writers group has been sustained over five years [with members who are] some original, some new,” she said. “I am heartbroken I am not going to see these people on a regular basis. They have been a part of my life.”

The event is free and open to the public. Reservations can be made on the library’s website. Patrons are urged to bring lawn chairs to ensure everyone can be seated.