lori jakiela - ProfilesArchive

About Me

O.k., so I wasn't ever crowned Miss New York. That's just the title of my book, Miss New York Has Everything. It's my first real book, so I'm pretty giddy. It's a memoir from Warner Books. It's sort of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs meets Coffee, Tea or Me. Mostly, it's a pop-cult journey of self discovery, with plenty of zombies, rabid poodles, drug-addicted nuns, talent-show rejects, Mile-High-Club horror stories, and other essentials along the way.Other things you might want to know about me: My last name rhymes with Tequila. My hometown, Trafford PA, is also the birthplace of Lauren Tewes, who used to play Julie the Cruise Director on the Love Boat. (Before she was canned for a nasty coke habit and her tendency to chunk up.) My hometown, Trafford PA, is widely thought of as the birthplace of the chocolate-covered pickle. I love deep fried food and have a romantic impulse towards Iron City Beer. I have deep roots. I'm also a poet. I have a chapbook called The Regulars. It was published by Liquid Paper Press in Austin, Texas. I've always been afraid to fly. I was a flight attendant for six years. Go figure. Come visit me at www.lorijakiela.com.
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My Interests

Books, of course. I love David Sedaris, especially Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Other writers who are lifelines for me include Ed Ochester, Philip Levine, Lorrie Moore, Nazim Hikmet, Mohammed Mrabet, Dave Newman, Chuck Kinder, Jonathan Ames, Gerald Locklin, Joan Jobe Smith, Pablo Neruda, Ernest Hemingway, Gerald Stern, Chuck Kinder, James Wright, Judith Vollmer, Bob Pajich, Greg Bottoms, the Wolff brothers, and so many more.

I'd like to meet:

Music:

The Replacements. Always. I love old (Ramones, Rancid) punk. And Marah (www.marah-usa.com) is just amazing. I have Irish roots and am a drunk table-pounder at heart, so of course The Pogues. Jesse Malin. Bright Eyes. The Sex Pistols (screw the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame; o.k., Johnny). Social Distortion. Townes Van Zandt. And my husband's in this great new Pittsburgh band, The Little Steven Fosters. So I'm the worst kind of groupy you can imagine, but seriously... these guys are like a cross between Woody Guthrie and The Replacements. Pure Pittsburgh gritty. You can check them out at www.purevolume.com.

Movies:

Annie Hall and Jaws. Manhattan. Capote. Sideways. I'm romantic. I've owned fedoras. I don't go in the ocean. Ever. The Brooklyn Bridge is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Philip Seymour Hoffman AND the story of the greatest creative nonfiction writer ever. Plus pinot and lots of it. Perfect.

Television:

Jon Stewart. Steven Colbert. Smarter than anything on CNN. Anything on Comedy Central except those redneck idiots.

Books:

More! Now, to add to the Interests list -- Bukowski's Ham on Rye and Post Office; John Fante's Brotherhood of the Grape; BJ Ward's The Gravedigger's Birthday; Dave Newman's Punch; Chuck Kinder's Honeymooners; Greg Bottoms' Angelhead; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby; Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield; Denise Duhamel's poems (all of them); Alyson Noel's Fly Me to the Moon; Dinty Moore's The Accidental Buddhist; Bob Pajich's Everyone Exquisite; and many more.

Heroes:

Hemingway. Sedaris. And my husband.

My Blog

New Yinzer, Yinz, N’at May 23

Attention Iron City folks: The New Yinzer, Pittsburgh's fab and mullet-free journal of all things 'Burghian (visit at www.newyinzer.com), is hosting a reading/concert/gathering on Friday, May 2...
Posted by lori jakiela on Thu, 08 May 2008 08:04:00 PST

The Funnies (Cool Factor Upped!)

David Chelsea, world-record holder for 24-Hour Comics-making and New York Times' illustrator extraordinaire, just posted his latest comic -- "Now Open the Box" -- loosely based on my essay that appear...
Posted by lori jakiela on Wed, 07 May 2008 11:09:00 PST

Radio Free Pittsburgh

My dear fellow yinzers (and other good folks) -- I'll be the featured writer on WYEP's Prosody show this Tuesday, April 29. The show, hosted by the lovely and super-brilliant Ellen Wadey, airs at 7 p....
Posted by lori jakiela on Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:23:00 PST

New York Times, Modern Love, and The Liberator

Hi Everyone -- I have an essay in today's New York Times (!!!! sorry for the exclamation points but I can't help it !!!!). It's in the Modern Love column. If you feel inclined, you can visit her...
Posted by lori jakiela on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:54:00 PST

UPWords Bound

Pittsburgh folks: I'll be reading at Pittsburgh's Union Project with poet Stacey Waite on Friday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. The reading, part of the UPWords series, is free and open to everyone. T...
Posted by lori jakiela on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 08:51:00 PST

Help! (A love story)

Hi Everybody -- I need your help! The amazing Dave Newman is a semi-finalist for Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award. His novel, PITTSBURGH IN THE TITLE, is a great working-class story set in Pitts...
Posted by lori jakiela on Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:00:00 PST

Literature With a Pulse

Love and cheers to the lovelies at The New Canon blog. This refreshing blog upsets the dominant paradigm -- fancy words footnoted from grad school -- and celebrates real books by real, sometimes ...
Posted by lori jakiela on Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:25:00 PST

Shop for a Cause (And Protest Sugarplums)

Does Christmas make visions of book wish-lists dance in your head? (I mean, have you ever met anyone who had visions of sugar plums? What are sugar plums anyway? Visions of Johnny Depp, sure. ...
Posted by lori jakiela on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:18:00 PST

All Lit Up -- A Reading

My Pittsburgh Lovelies -- I hope you'll join Stephanie Brea, Ellen Smith, Carrie Smith, and Meghan Tutolo, and me for the All Lit Up poetry/prose reading at Future Tenant Gallery (819 Penn A...
Posted by lori jakiela on Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:57:00 PST

Big Dreams and Bigger Bruises -- An Interview

Here's an interview I did with the divine diva Debi Dodson at She Unlimited. Be sure to visit Debi and friends at www.sheunlimited.com. And now, does anybody have an ice pack? My roller derby days ar...
Posted by lori jakiela on Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:00:00 PST