Above: Isaiah Johnson, an eighth-grader at Founders Hall Middle School in McKeesport, recalled his first day of sixth grade with his story. "It was like a boxing match between me and the bell: Every time I would get the upper hand, it would ring and hit me with a right hook."


On Nov. 21, eight writers from the McKeesport Community Newsroom stepped into the spotlight during Tube City Writers Live, showcasing their work through the CMI project, facilitated by Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Martha Rial and Seton Hill University associate professor Nicole Peeler.

Peeler, director of the Writing Popular Fiction Program, summed up the evening in her opening remarks:

Most people talk about two McKeesports: the one that used to exist, and the one that exists now. The first narrative usually focuses on a nostalgic, romanticized version of a past that only existed for some of its residents. Meanwhile, the second is a narrative often shaped by outsiders who have very little experience of the actual city. My goal was to resist both of these narratives and to focus on the real lives of people who live in this area. These storytellers have done a beautiful job doing just that.

We begin with stories that take you back in time, to when childhood was seemingly limitless in its potential. We will interact with figures who straddle and symbolize the generational shifts of this area, and we will hear about a beloved car that represents an American Dream that fruited here, so briefly and only for a lucky few. We will also hear from those for whom that dream was a mirage, and for whom “progress” has meant being treated as less than human. We will hear a story about saving the most vulnerable in our society, and a story about someone saving herself from other people’s definitions of her and her life. Finally, we will return to childhood, and what it’s like living here now.