The final season of the Gist Street Reading Series will be this fall. The final reading: December 3, 2010. It has been a pleasure bringing these readings to you—some 200 authors from near and far have traveled to Uptown over the past 10 years by car, by plane, by train and bus. And we have had so much fun along the way. We started the series in March 2001, searching for the kind of robust arts community that’s now frequently found throughout the city, but didn’t seem to exist when we moved here. And yet, the readings at James Simon’s Sculpture Studio have always rumbled with expectation the first Friday of each month. So, foremost, we want to thank you, our audience, for your excellence and dedication.

The concept was simple: create a literary event that wasn’t marketed solely to writers, that wasn’t based in academia, but instead was rooted in the simple enjoyment of listening to literature read aloud. A series open to the community—to everyone. We had just a few rules: greet people at the door, charge admission, offer food, suggest a potluck/byob, invite kind, talented authors to read both prose and poetry, and keep it simple. These are the rules we still live by each month—with a few more added on, like, don’t let James put up the closed sign because he always lets more people in, add a raffle, and no outside announcements over the mic.

People said you couldn’t hold a series on a Friday night; people said you couldn’t charge admission (first $2, then $5, then $10) for readings; people said you needed the support of foundations and universities. But you, our audience, proved those people wrong. So thanks. Thanks early on for helping us set up chairs, for dealing with the impossible stairs and iffy sound system, for donating to the stair fund that built the new stairs, for lining up, for clapping, for riding your bikes to Gist Street in snowstorms and in heat waves, for listening, for turning off your cell phones, for bringing dishes and plates of food, for carting up bottles of wine and cases of beer, for sometimes dropping a $50 check into our basket without a word, for donating strange and wonderful raffle prizes, for laughing at all the right times, and for sitting quietly while our authors read to you and for socializing when they weren’t. Thank you. You are awesome.

Second: I want to thank all of the wonderful and talented authors who have read in the series. Thanks specifically to Pamela Painter, Ilya Kaminsky, Charles D’Ambrosio, and Margot Livesey who gave amazing, life-changing Saturday craft lectures. Thanks also to the wonderful small presses who worked with us for our annual July cookout extravaganzas: Mammoth, Verse, Graywolf, Softskull, McSweeney’s, University of Nebraska, Autumn House, and Dzanc. I have never ceased to be impressed by our authors’ generosity and kindness in working out travel plans, presenting imaginative readings, and in talking with our audience before and after their presentations. I’m thrilled that we were able to introduce so many great emerging authors to our audience and in return introduce these authors to the city of Pittsburgh. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Third: I would like to thank the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and specifically the funding stream (which trickles down from the NEA) PA Partners in the Arts for partially funding us for the past 4 years. Since we are not a non-profit this is the only funding stream in Western Pennsylvania for which we’ve qualified. Thank you David Seals. Thank you Susan Blackman. Fantastic grant officers and people, and now friends. I’d like to thank Teresa Foley who gave us a one-time award from the Creativity Project and Jason Simmons’ Happenings List, which was absolutely indispensible in developing our early audience. I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic support of local press outlets, specifically editors Bob Hoover of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Bill O’Driscoll of City Paper. I’d like to thank the Lonely Planet guide for including us in the 2010 national guide and making us feel like rock stars for a little bit there. And for all the venues, which include too many blogs to name, that belted out praise large and small. I would like to thank Councilman Bill Peduto for his ongoing support of our series and for his support of progressive causes in Western Pennsylvania.

Fourth, I would like to thank our unbelievably hardworking, creative staff: Nancy Krygowski, assistant artistic director and co-founder. James Simon, host. Rick Schweikert, operations. John Fleenor, location coordinator. Jon Ritz, sound guy—replaced by Tom Kizer, sound guy. Cindy Closkey, web goddess. Antoine (Leyn)—homemade bread and ice cream maker. And our newest addition to the staff: Bob “meat guy” Marion. We’re all friends and as such, Gist Street has been a guaranteed time for all of us to catch up each month as we clean James’ studio, set up, make food, and usher you all in. We all still like each other. A lot. Hurray!

Ten years is a long time, and we’ve always wanted to end Gist Street while we’re going strong. As a 10-year experiment in curating and programming, we feel proud of and humbled by our success.

Back in 2001, we wanted to make Pittsburgh into a better, more creative, more progressive place, and we can only hope that we have helped do that just a bit. We’ve volunteered our time to Gist Street, and as such these monthly events have been a collective act of generosity, a gift given to a city that we’ve come to love. And, it has, of course, also been a gift to us at the same time. In March 2001, new to Pittsburgh and feeling a bit lost, we thought, hmmmm, maybe we can make some friends if we start a reading series? We opened the doors that night at 7:30 pm. We were right.

Although the Gist Street Reading series will soon end, other creative projects will bubble up. I’ll use this list to keep you posted. If you have a memory or something you’d like to say about Gist Street, please feel free to reply to this email. We’ll post some stories on our website.

Thanks again and all best wishes to you,

Sherrie Flick, artistic director