The Fifth Floor Fall/Winter 2017

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Major Upgrade: Public and Professional Writing Program Expands

For 14 years, the University of Pittsburgh’s Public and Professional Writing (PPW) program has offered students the chance to expand their professional communication skills. The program offered an 18-credit certificate that students could tailor to fit their professional goals and future endeavors.

But now the program is introducing a new opportunity: a PPW major. More >

Rachel Nagelberg: Creating a Body of Work

Everyone is capable of being an artist. What separates those who are capable from those who are successful, though, is their willingness to put the uncomfortable truth into their art. Rachel Nagelberg is no stranger to this discomfort. In fact, it is something she has embraced and even drawn inspiration from for her writing.

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With Feeling: A Tribute to Jane Feuer

I met up with Jane Feuer one evening last November to look at her collection of 1940s Christmas cards, which was no minor undertaking. As I looked through the hundreds of cards in the collection, Jane filled in their backgrounds. This one had come from an estate sale, that one from a thrift shop, that bunch from another collector. Some were inscribed—a lovely one from a meter reader at the electric company to a family on his route. They were all beautiful, some sweetly delicate, some chummier in their Christmas wishes. More>

New Faculty Profile: Piotr Gwiazda

Scholar, poet, and translator Piotr Gwiazda has joined Pitt as a Professor of English in the Literature program. Gwiazda graduated from Southern Connecticut State University with a bachelor’s degree in English. He then went on to receive his master’s degree in English andAmerican Literature from New York University. In 2001, he completed his PhD, again from New York University, writing his dissertation on James Merrill and W.H. Auden. He comes to Pitt after teaching for 15 years at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

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