Paola Corso is the author of 7 poetry and fiction books set in her native Pittsburgh where her Italian immigrant family found work in the steel mills. Most recent are The Laundress Catches Her Breath (CavanKerry Press, 2012), winner of the Tillie Olsen Award in Creative Writing, Once I Was Told the Air Was Not Breathing, winner of a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Award, and her forthcoming collection Vertical Bridges: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of City Steps. Her nonfiction has appeared in venues such as The New York Times, Women’s Review of Books, and U.S. Catholic. Writing honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, and inclusion on Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Cultural and Literary Map.  A literary activist, Corso is co-founder and resident artist of Steppin Stanzas, a poetry and art project celebrating city steps. She is a member of Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Collective who exhibits her photographs in libraries, galleries, and open studios. She divides her time between New York City where she is on the English Department Faculty at Touro College and Pittsburgh. paolacorso.com