This Saturday, October 1st, UnSmoke ArtSpace presents: Wood-Fired Words, a literary event curated by Sherrie Flick of the Gist Street Reading Series.

Please join us for an evening of fiction, art, music, books, and homemade pizza (an unbeatable combination)!!

Featuring: a fiction reading by Josh Barkan, Into the Furnace writer-in-residence, live music by the Emily Pinkerton Trio, paintings by John Fleenor, the East End Book Exchange, Pittsburgh’s pop-up used bookstore, and pizza from the wood-fired community pizza oven.

Saturday, October 1st, 7PM – 10PM.  5$.  BYOB.  Reading will being at 8PM.

UnSmoke Systems ArtSpace is located at 1137 Braddock Ave, Braddock, PA 15104.

For more information, please visit:

UnSmoke ArtSpace: http://unsmokeartspace.com/home.html

Josh Barkan: www.joshbarkan.com

Into the Furnace: http://intothefurnace.wordpress.com/

Emily Pinkerton Trio: http://www.emilypinkerton.com/

East End Book Exchange: http://www.eastendbookexchange.com

John Fleenor: http://www.johnfleenor.com/

In a previous post about the state of used bookstores in Pittsburgh, Lindsay mentioned the emergence of a new business model, the pop-up.  Pop-up businesses occupy a retail or cultural space for a short period – a day, a week, a month – close, and then reappear at a different location for an equally temporary engagement.  Pop-up business have taken off in cities around the US (you can read a serial pop-up entrepreneur in Denver on BlogLocal’s website).  Now Pittsburgh seems to be awakening to the trend.  City officials recently announced the launch of Project Pop-Up Pittsburgh, an initiative designed to help bring small business owners and local artists into downtown, specifically into one of the many unoccupied storefronts.  You can read more about the project’s goals and guidelines on their website: http://projectpopuppittsburgh.wordpress.com.  The deadline for submissions is September 13, 2011 at 5:00PM.

In the meantime, we hope you will continue supporting Pittsburgh’s current pop-up stores (and alerting us to new arrivals).  East End Book Exchange recently announced three new pop-up events:

• Saturday, August 20th at Commonplace Coffeehouse in Squirrel Hill. 10-4pm
• Saturday, August 27th at Assemble (5125 Penn Avenue in Garfield). 10 – 4PM.   We will be joined here by Tech-To-Go, the tech pop-up project from BirdBrains Labs.
• Sunday, August 28th at Pittsburgh Public Market in the Strip District. 10-4PM.

Check their blog for more details and updates: www.eastendbookexchange.blogspot.com

Hey all,

This is last minute, East End Book Exchange just confirmed their location for this weekend:

We’ll be at Commonplace Coffee in Squirrel Hill (5827 Forbes Avenue, near Murray Ave).

TOMORROW, Saturday, August 6th from 10am-4pm.

Visit their website for more information: http://eastendbookexchange.blogspot.com/2011/08/east-end-book-exchange-at-commonplace.html

Buy some books, try some excellent coffee, help support two great local businesses!!