Paola Corso

Paola Corso

Paola Corso
Born Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Occupation Poet, fiction writer, essayist
Notable work The Laundress Catches Her Breath, Catina's Haircut
Awards New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow

Paola Corso (May 28, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American fiction writer, poet, and essayist. Corso is a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow[1] and Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award Winner, and is the author of Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories (2010) on Library Journal’s notable list of first novels,[2] Giovanna’s 86 Circles And Other Stories (2005), a Binghamton University's John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist,[3] a book of poems, Death by Renaissance (2004), and newly released poetry collections, The Laundress Catches Her Breath[4] and Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing (2012),[5] about Pittsburgh steelworkers and garment workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Her books are set in the Pittsburgh area, where her Southern Italian immigrant family found work in the steel mill. Her themes include ethnicity, the working class, social change, and magical leaps. Corso has also written poetry books about growing up near a toxic dump that was on the EPA's Superfund List, the city's history of water and air pollution, and the link between cancer and a polluted environment in the workplace. She co-edited an anthology, Politics of Water: A Confluence of Women's Voices and wrote an introductory personal essay on the subject of industrial pollution.

Formerly a writer-in-residence in Western Connecticut State University’s MFA Program in Creative and Professional Writing,[6] Corso is currently is a lecturer in Chatham University's MFA Program in Creative Writing.[7] She lives in New York City.

Life, career, and community organizing

Corso was born in the Alle-Kiski Valley of Allegheny County, in the Pittsburgh area and lived as a young adult in the city’s East End neighborhood, Squirrel Hill. She graduated from Boston College with her BA in Sociology. She continued her education at San Francisco State University, where she obtained an MPA in Public Administration/Community Organizing. In 1999, Corso received her MA in Creative Writing/English from City College of New York/ CUNY.

Before teaching creative writing at the college level, Corso was a community organizer and grant writer for non-profits. She created collaborative community arts projects. She partnered with Northside Common Ministries, a Pittsburgh ecumenical organization and its members to co-write plays with Michael Winks about homelessness and hunger, based on interviews they conducted in shelters and food pantries. House of Cards was produced at Pittsburgh Public Theater and Leftovers was awarded a state grant from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Corso was also a resident writer for the National Endowment for the Arts WritersCorps in the Bronx where she introduced literary arts in hospitals and senior centers.[8] She co-founded the National Writers Union New York Local's Community Writing Project[9] and led writing workshops in a Manhattan shelter for single mothers. Her community service earned her a place on the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Artist & Communities Short List. Most recently, she co-curated the reading series, WORDsprouts at the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn[10] and founded Writers in the Wall, a creative writing workshop and reading series in the Pittsburgh river town of Aspinwall.[11]

She is the daughter of Vincenza Marie Calderone and Mario Procopio Corso. Corso is married to Michael Winks; the couple has two sons, Giona Donato Mariano and Mario Curruchiche.

Works

Books

Editing

Poems

Stories

Non-fiction

Anthologies

Reviews

Honors and awards

References

  1. 1 2 New York Foundation for the Arts, Artists' Fellowship - Poetry, Paola Corso, 2003.
  2. Library Journal's First Novels: Fall Firsts, 2010.
  3. Past Winners, Paola Corso, 2010.
  4. Corso, Paola. The Laundress Catches Her Breath, CavanKerry Press, 2012.
  5. Corso, Paola. Once I Was Told the Air Was Not For Breathing, Parallel Press, 2012.
  6. Western Connecticut State University's MFA Program in Creative and Professional Writing.
  7. Chatham University's MFA Creative Writing and Staff, Paola Corso.
  8. Bronx Council for the Arts, WritersCorps.
  9. National Writers Union NYC Chapter.
  10. Park Slope Food Coop, WORDsprouts event.
  11. Aspinwall Civic Association Events, Writers in the Wall, Creative Writing Workshop and Reading Series, Hosted by Paola Corso.
  12. Corso, Paola. A Proper Burial, Pudding House, 2003.
  13. Wellesley Centers for Women, Women's Review of Books - 2010 Issues, 2010.
  14. Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Issue Sentence 7.
  15. The Progressive, June 2004 Issue, Volume 68, Number 6.
  16. Corso, Paola. From Without and From Within, Glimmer Train Press, Portland, OR, October, 2010.
  17. O'Driscoll, Bill. Book Reviews: Poet Paola Corso explores work - and the conditionality of breathing. Pittsburgh City Paper, January 09, 2013.
  18. Word for Word Poetry, Featuring the poets of Cavan Kerry Press, Bryant Park Blog, June 12, 2012.
  19. Behe, Regis. Natrona Heights native fictionalizes the immigrant experience, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 5, 2010.
  20. Publishers Weekly, Catina's Haircut: A Novel in Stories, Published October 2010, Reviewed on: 08/16/2010.
  21. Gioseffi, Daniela. Reviews - Giovanna's 86 Circles, Rain Taxi, Spring 2006, Print edition.
  22. O'Driscoll, Bill. Giovanna's 86 Circles By Paola Corso, Pittsburgh City Paper, September 29, 2005.
  23. Publishers Weekly, Giovanna's 86 Circles, Reviewed on: 08/29/2005.
  24. Ann Curan, Poet re-creates bygone era of local river towns, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 5, 2004.
  25. Behe, Regis. Poet explores leap from Tarentum to Brooklyn in book, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 21, 2004.
  26. Paola Corso, Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing, 2013.
  27. Catina's Haircut, An official selection of The Sons of Italy® Book Club.
  28. 2008 University Press Books Selected for Public and Secondary School Libraries.
  29. The Sherwood Anderson Foundation, Anderson Foundation Awards, Corso.
  30. CUNY, Annual Awards, Creative Writing
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