Craft Talk

After attending Joseph Bathanti’s craft talk, I began to think as a Pittsburgh writer too.

I have grown up in this area all of my life, but was always unsure what is appropriate to write about? For instance, is it appropriate to write about the Steel workers who used to inhabit most of the downtown area, even though it was many years before my time? Also it it a sore subject because the steel industry leaving Pittsburgh was considered one of the worst events in the history of Pittsburgh? Better yet, is it appropriate to write about Bill Mazeroski’s World Series game winning home run if my parents were only five years old?

I was truly inspired when Bathanti spoke about how he has written a piece on Bill Mazersoki’s game winning home run from the opposing pitchers perspective. But also, I was a little confused. How can Bathanti accurately describe the moment Bill Mazersoki hit the game winning home run if he wasn’t there to experience it? How do you go about attempting to capture a moment in time like that if you’ve never had a chance to experience something like that since? (There has been no walk-off-game-winning-home-runs in a Pirates world series since.) I understand that you can do research and interviews with fans who were there, but to accurately describe a moment like that, I personally believe that you have to be there.

On the other hand, I think that if Bathanti ever decided to write a piece on how most of the steel industry left Pittsburgh, he would be able to do research and accurately describe the feeling of the city at that period because he can look at such things as statistics of home prices, the unemployment rate, and cost of living. Plus, this is very easy to write about because we are now just beginning to see people moving back to Pittsburgh.