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WHEREAS, Peter Oresick, a prolific poet, publisher, professor, printer, and painter, was a champion of Pittsburgh and the literary arts; and,
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WHEREAS, Peter, a native of Ford City, Armstrong County and a life-long Western Pennsylvanian, was the author of 10 books and the editor of an additional seven books; and,
WHEREAS, Peter earned a B.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, served as marketing director and later acting director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, and taught at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, the University of Pittsburgh, Emerson College, and in the Pittsburgh Public Schools; and,
WHEREAS, Peter's love for this region and for literature led him to author The Pittsburgh Novel: Western Pennsylvania in Fiction and Drama, 1792-2022, an annotated bibliography of all known fiction with a significant geographical setting in any of Pennsylvania's 26 westernmost counties; and,
WHEREAS, in 2016, Peter passed away before The Pittsburgh Novel could be completed, at which time the project's editors asked Peter's son, Jake Oresick, an author and attorney, to complete The Pittsburgh Novel; and,
WHEREAS, in Peter's honor, Jake worked for over six years to complete The Pittsburgh Novel and ensure its publication; and,
WHEREAS, on January 31, 2023, The Pittsburgh Novel was published by Penn State University Libraries' Open Publishing imprint; and,
WHEREAS, The Pittsburgh Novel includes more than 1,500 novels, short stories, stage plays, motion pictures, and television series, by writers as significant and varied as Willa Cather, August Wilson, E. L. Doctorow, John Edgar Wideman, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and Kurt Vonnegut; and,
WHEREAS, The Pittsburgh Novel, Peter's visionary concept, will reintroduce Western Pennsylvania to the world through 230 years of fiction and forever memorialize these works that celebrate our region; and,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the...
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