![\"Pittsburgh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pittsburgh-lit-september-2025.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nTrafford author Dave Newman has been working overtime. In less than a year, he has published three new books in three separate genres: \u201cShe Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall\u201d is a collection of short stories told primarily from the viewpoint of female characters; \u201cHow to Live like Li Po in Pittsburgh\u201d is a generous helping of personal essays; and \u201cBetter than The Best American Poetry\u201d is his newest book of poems.<\/p>\n
No matter the form Newman\u2019s writing takes, though, his content remains laser-focused. The short poem \u201cWorking Class\u201d lays it out like this: \u201cEvery other culture finds rewards \/ for their suffering \/\/ We are held accountable \/ for the wealth of the rotten class.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or there\u2019s this, from the essay \u201cDitch-Digger for the Butcher Lie, or Why Universities are a Terrible Place to Work.\u201d \u201cSome days I close my eyes and remember 1988, the sadness of that year and those men, and the icy goodness of having a beer and the belief that college would keep me from the unemployment line, from jobs that barely paid and the midnight shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
The people who populate Newman\u2019s literary world work terrible jobs for very little pay. Whether driving a truck or working as adjunct professors, they are desperately trying to keep themselves above the poverty line. Many are juggling multiple jobs while trying to finish a college degree, with loan debt piling up and without health insurance. The threat of the unemployment line hangs over everyone.<\/p>\n
Thinking about Newman\u2019s work, I\u2019m reminded of something the artist Robert Crumb wrote about the work of the Cleveland writer Harvey Pekar: \u201c[E]ven the most seemingly dreary and monotonous of lives is filled with poignancy and heroic struggle. All it takes is someone with an eye to see, an ear to hear.\u201d Dave Newman is that someone. By turns angry and funny, his work offers dignity to lives that too often go overlooked and unconsidered.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All the books were published in less than a year. Trafford author Dave Newman has been working overtime.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-179996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115101346393172889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}