In 2016, headlines declared Appalachia ground zero for America's forgotten tribe of white working class voters. Journalists flocked to the region to extract sympathetic profiles of families devastated by poverty, abandoned by establishment politics, and eager to consume cheap campaign promises. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is a frank assessment of America's recent fascination with the people and problems of the region. The book analyzes trends in contemporary writing on Appalachia, presents a brief history of Appalachia with an eye toward unpacking Appalachian stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians as opposed to for Appalachians. The book offers a must-needed insider's perspective on the region.

An inside look at the music born, bred, and perfected in Chicago.

Chicago house music originated in the city's Black, gay underground in the late seventies and became one of the most popular musical genres in the world by the end of the century. In Chicago House Music: Culture and Community, Marguerite Harrold tells the story of the genre's rise and the prolific creators who have sustained it for decades. You'll learn about house music's early innovators, like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles, who transformed the social and political turmoil around them into a revolution in dance music. You'll also hear remembrances from contemporary figures in the house community, like DJ Lady D, Avery R. Young, Czboogie and Edgar Artek Sinio, who have forged new paths as the genre has evolved. It's a story about much more than music--it's about a community struggling for acceptance, love, liberation, and freedom, and about the creative pioneers whose resilience helped turn house music into a worldwide phenomenon.

Full of interviews and first-hand accounts from the people who stood behind the turntables, carried crates of records, or danced until dawn, Chicago House Music is the history of an art form that continues to be a force for social interaction, spiritual liberation, and community today.

One of Washington Post's 50 most notable non-fiction books of 2024

National Books Critics Circle - 2024 Finalist: Autobiography

The Minotaur at Calle Lanza is an unforgettable travel memoir about the mysterious transformations that may lurk inside us all.

Venice, 2020. As a pandemic rages across the globe, Zito Madu finds himself in a nearly deserted city, its walls and basilicas humming with strange magic. As he wanders a haunted landscape, we see him twist further into his own past: his family's difficult immigration from Nigeria to Detroit, his troubled relationship with his father, the sporadic joys of daily life and solitude, his experiences with migration, poverty, foreignness, racism, and his own rage and regret. But as it is with all labyrinths, after finding its center, will he come away unscathed, or will he transform into the gripping, fantastical monstrousness that's out to consume him whole?

With nods to Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, this surrealist debut memoir takes us into the labyrinth of memory and the monsters lurking there.

Dive into Cleveland's deep past and return with a new vision for how we should think about the region today.

The land we call northeast Ohio was originally forged through eons of glacial pressure, geologic shifts, and the relentless movement of the Cuyahoga River. Since the last Ice Age, however, it has also been transformed countless times by the many people who have called it home.

In An Alternative History of Cleveland, Jon Wlasiuk uncovers the mysteries, devastations, and human incursions that have shaped the region. Here, you'll encounter the giant megafauna that roamed the area until their mysterious extinction, Indigenous civilizations who first shaped the land and harnessed its natural resources, industrial pioneers like John D. Rockefeller and Charles Brush who corralled electricity and crude oil in the service of capitalist progress, the environmental devastation that polluted the Cuyahoga and caused toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, and the numerous Clevelanders today who want to reshape the city's relationship with the natural environment. Though separated by thousands of years, these stories contain a common theme: the city of Cleveland remains bound to nature, despite our best efforts to liberate ourselves from its limits.

Part natural history, part archeological essay, and part a contemporary call to arms to reclaim and rewild Cleveland's future, this unforgettable trek into the heart of the Land will change the way you see the city forever.

Anxiety may be the defining feeling of our current era, and though it affects many people on a deeply personal level, the last few years have also witnessed the rise of more communal feelings of dread and unknowing, problems that sometimes seem too big to face. Will the United States remain a democracy? Can we still have meaningful lives amid the rubble of late capitalism and the inevitable creep of climate change? How do we even start to grapple with a problem so large it seems to pervade almost every corner of our lives?

In Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room, Jonathan Foiles, a licensed psychotherapist and lecturer at the University of Chicago's Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, explains how philosophy can help us respond to these deep questions and communal worries about modern life. Read how S ren Kierkegaard can speak to feelings of helplessness in the face of police violence, how Hannah Arendt can help us rethink the seemingly unavoidable problem of a warming planet, and how social advocates like Jane Addams and Dorothy Day can offer hope and resolve in a world that sometimes seems like it's already ended.

Thoughtful, discerning, personal, and accessible, Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room will serve as a concise companion for anyone looking to address our cultural unease and find new ways to face it together.

Perhaps the elusive great American novel for the twenty-first century.

It begins with a gunshot: a student's public suicide on a university campus. The blast radius of this tragic explosion expands to encompass 50 years of our history and two of the grandest characters in recent American fiction: Simon Magnus, a comic-book writer who transfigured popular culture turned gender activist who transfigures the English language, and Ash del Greco, an online occultist who by the age of 20 has seen to the end of everything and wants desperately to prove the superiority of mind over matter. With a decades-spanning but tightly-knit plot, written in an expansive style, Major Arcana canvasses America's inner life and moral history from coast to coast and across two generations in a delirious saga about art, magic, love, and death.

Originally serialized on the author's Substack newsletter, Major Arcana is a novel about the transformative power of popular culture. With a nod to Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Pistelli reimagines the expansive novel for the 21st century.

From the critically acclaimed author of Shizuko's Daughter (a New York Times Notable Book) and Yarn, comes a fascinating new memoir about animals, loss, and finding a home in the world.

Cat and Bird, a memoir in animals, is anchored around Kyoko Mori's relationship with the six house cats who defined the major eras of her life as a writer: Dorian, Oscar, Ernest, Algernon, Miles, and Jackson. As she details the rhythms and routines of their days together, she weaves a narrative tapestry out of her past: the deep family tragedy and resilience that marked her childhood in Japan, her move to the American Midwest as a young adult, her experiences as a bird rehabilitator and cat trainer, her marriage and divorce, and the joys and profound heartbreaks that come with pet ownership. Full of razor-sharp observations and generous prose, Cat and Bird whirls into a moving meditation about grief, writing, the imagination, the solitary life, and the wonders of companionship with creatures both domestic and wild.

What does the future hold for the Midwest?

A vast stretch of fertile farmland bordering one of the largest concentrations of fresh water in the world, the Midwestern US seems ideally situated for the coming challenges of climate change. But it also sits at the epicenter of a massive economic collapse that many of its citizens are still struggling to overcome. The question of what the Midwest is (and what it will become) is nothing new. As Phil Christman writes in this idiosyncratic new book, ambiguity might be the region's defining characteristic. Taking a cue from Jefferson's grid, the famous rectangular survey of the Old Northwest Territory that turned everything from Ohio to Wisconsin into square-mile lots, Christman breaks his exploration of Midwestern identity, past and present, into 36 brief, interconnected essays. The result is a sometimes sardonic, often uproarious, and consistently thought-provoking look at a misunderstood place and the people who call it home.

A brief, cogent analysis of gentrification in Chicago ... an incisive and useful narrative on the puzzle of urban development.-Kirkus Reviews

In the years after World War II, a movement began to bring the middle class back from the Chicago suburbs to the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the city's North Side. In place of the old, poorly maintained apartments and dense streetscapes of taverns and butchers, rehabbers imagined a new kind of neighborhood--a renovated, modern community that held on to the convenience, diversity, and character of a historic urban quarter, but also enjoyed the prosperity and privileges of a new subdivision.

But as the old buildings came down, cheap studios were combined to create ever more spacious, luxurious homes. Property values swiftly rose, and the people who were being evicted to make room for progress began to assert their own ideas about the future of Lincoln Park. Over the course of the 1960s, divisions within the community deepened. Letters and picket lines gave way to increasingly violent strikes and counterstrikes as each camp tried to settle the same existential questions that beguile so many cities today: Who is a neighborhood for? And who gets to decide?

A riveting historical look at gentrification and urban renewal projects that still resonates across every American city today.

The very best writing from one of America's most groundbreaking literary magazines.

When Creative Nonfiction debuted in 1994, the literary genre it championed was largely the target of skepticism or downright ridicule. But at a time when few editors were interested in the personal essay, the magazine doggedly explored new ideas and fresh modes of expression, and over the next three decades, its contributors pioneered what would come to be known as the fourth genre.

The thirty-two essays collected here bring together some of the finest work Creative Nonfiction published over its seventy-eight issues. Read Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Simic's boyhood remembrances of the bombing of Belgrade, Carolyn Forche's haunting, lyric catalog of her daily life as she faced down a cancer diagnosis, and John Edgar Wideman's meditation on the photo of a murdered boy his same age--Emmett Till--and how the image haunted him forever. Here, you'll find work by such luminaries as Adrienne Rich and John McPhee, but also essays from more contemporary voices like Brian Broome, Elizabeth Fortescue, and Anne McGrath.

With an introduction by Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction's founder and editor, this collection captures the evolution of a genre and the amazing work of the little magazine that helped make it all happen.

Ferguson, Missouri, became the epicenter of America's racial tensions after the 2014 murder of Michael Brown and the protests that followed in its wake.

Though this suburb just outside St. Louis might have seemed like an average midwestern town, the activism that exploded there after Brown's killing laid bare how longstanding municipal planning policies had led to racial segregation, fragmentation, poverty, and police targeting.

In over one hundred maps, Patty Heyda charts the systemic forces that have defined Ferguson, and the first-ring suburb in America more broadly. Through an in-depth look at the contradictions undergirding city planning and design, it illuminates how tax incentives, housing codes, urban design, policing, philanthropy, and even landscaping often work against the betterment of residents' lives. At its heart lies a key question: Just who are our cities being built for?

A profound rethinking of what maps can be, Radical Atlas of Ferguson USA will challenge city planners, designers, and everyday citizens to change their perspective of public space.

Foreword by Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman.

Pittsburgh in 50 Maps offers unique new views of a city at a crossroads--culturally, economically, and demographically.

There are countless ways to map a city. Roads, bridges, and waterways help you navigate the twists and turns; topography gives you the lay of the land; population trends show you a region's changing fortunes. But the best maps let you feel what a city's really like. Whether you call it the Steel City, the City of Bridges, City of Champions, Hell with the Lid Off, or even the Paris of Appalachia, Pittsburgh's distinctive character is undeniable. Pittsburgh in 50 Maps considers the boundaries of the city's 90 distinct neighborhoods (plus Mister Rogers' Neighborhood), the legacy of the steel industry, and how immigration continues to shape the city. You'll also find the areas with the highest concentrations of bike lanes, supermarkets, tree cover, and fiberglass dinosaurs. Each colorful map offers a new perspective on one of America's most consistently surprising cities and the people who live here.

Sure to be a conversation starter for Pittsburgh locals, transplants, and expats, Pittsburgh in 50 Maps is for anyone keen to understand the city in new and unexpected ways.

A fundamental reevaluation of how to be a sports fan by an acclaimed baseball writer.

Sports fandom isn't what it used to be. Owners and executives increasingly count on the blind loyalty of their fans and too often act against the team's best interest. Sports fans are left deliberating not only mismanagement, but also political, health, and ethical issues.

In Rethinking Fandom: How To Beat The Sports Industrial Complex at Its Own Game, sportswriter (and lifelong sports fan) Craig Calcaterra outlines endemic problems with what he calls the Sports-Industrial Complex, such as intentionally tanking a season to get a high draft pick, scamming local governments to build cushy new stadiums, actively subverting the players, bad stadium deals, racism, concussions, and more. But he doesn't give up on professional sports. In the second half of the book, he proposes strategies to reclaim joy in fandom: rooting for players instead of teams, being a fair-weather fan, becoming an activist, and other clever solutions.

With his characteristic wit and piercing commentary, Calcaterra argues that fans have more power than they realize to change how their teams behave.

Ed Simon tells the story of Pittsburgh through this exploration of its hidden histories--the LA Review of Books calls it an epic, atomic history of the Steel City.

The land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans for millennia. Over the past four centuries, however, it has been transformed countless times by the many people who call it home. In this brief, lyrical, and idiosyncratic collection, Ed Simon, a staff writer at The Millions, follows the story of America's furnace through a series of interconnected segments, covering all manner of Pittsburgh-beloved people, places, and things, including:

- Paleolithic Pittsburgh

- The Whiskey Rebellion

- The attempted assassination of Henry Frick

- The Harmonists

- The Mystery, Pittsburgh's radical, Black nationalist newspaper

- The myth of Joe Magarac

- Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Andy Warhol, and much, much more.

Accessible and funny, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh is a must-read for anyone curious about this storied city, and for Pittsburghers who think they know it all too well already.

A guided tour of one of the Midwest's most vibrant subcultures, one DIY ramp at a time.

The American Midwest may not have a reputation as the nation's skating mecca, but maybe it should. In Midwest Shreds, Mandy Shunnarah travels around the region for a deep dive into its skating culture, detailing the activity's long, storied history there and the large and diverse skating community that calls the Midwest home today. Here, you'll learn how skating has become a form of mutual aid in Iowa, follow hard-core street skaters as they vie to become King of Cleveland, experience the transcendence of skating in a converted St. Louis cathedral, meet the anarchists who've built their own skate paradise, cinder block by cinder block, in southern Ohio, and encounter skaters from Des Moines, Madison, Chicago, West Lafayette, Detroit, and other corners of the Midwest.

With writing that revels in the crunching scrape of hard wheels, the joy of nailing a trick for the first time, and the grit required to fall and get back up again, Midwest Shreds illuminates a small corner of Midwest life and offers a portrait of the rich cultural history and diversity that makes the region what it is today.

This hilarious, touching debut novel by Aaron Foley, author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass, follows three Black gay millennial men looking for love, friendship, and professional success in the Motor City.

Suddenly jobless and single after a devastating layoff and a breakup with his cheating ex, advertising copywriter Dominick Gibson flees his life in Hell's Kitchen to try and get back on track in his hometown of Detroit. He's got one objective -- exit the shallow dating pool ASAP and get married by thirty-five -- and the deadline's approaching fast.

Meanwhile, Dom's best friend, Troy Clements, an idealistic teacher who never left Michigan, finds himself at odds with all the men in his life: a troubled boyfriend he's desperate to hold onto, a perpetually dissatisfied father, and his other friend, Remy Patton. Remy, a rags-to-riches real estate agent known as Mr. Detroit, has his own problems -- namely choosing between making it work with a long-distance lover or settling for a local Mr. Right Now who's not quite Mr. Right. And when a high-stakes real estate deal threatens to blow up his friendship with Troy, the three men have to figure out how to navigate the pitfalls of friendship and a city that seems to be changing overnight.

Full of unforgettable characters, Boys Come First is about the trials and tribulations of real friendship, but also about the highlights and hiccups --late nights at the wine bar, awkward Grindr hookups, workplace microaggressions, situationships, frenemies, family drama, and of course, the group chat -- that define Black, gay, millennial life in today's Detroit.

Part of Belt's Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook is an intimate exploration of the Windy City's history and identity. Required reading--The Chicago Tribune

Officially, Chicago has 77 neighborhoods. Unofficially, though, that number's closer to 200. But what does that mean for the people who actually call Chicago home? In an eclectic collection of essays, poems, photos, and visual art, The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook aims to explore the city's overlooked corners. Edited by Martha Bayne, and with help from the Read/Write Library, the book builds on 2017's critically acclaimed Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology. Here, you'll find compelling stories from all over the city:

- What one pizzeria meant to a boy growing up in Ashburn

- The South Shore's beauty and pain

- The best borscht in Ukranian Village

- The alleys of the Gold Coast

- Rogers Park's ever-shifting identity.

This lyrical and subjective guide to Chicago features work by Megan Stielstra, Audrey Petty, Alex Hernandez, Sebastián Hidalgo, Dmitry Samarov, Ed Marszewski, Lily Be, Jonathan Foiles, and many more. It's a book about the day-to-day lives of people in the city and above all else, about the changes those people have witnessed, suffered, and enacted.

In this idiosyncratic guidebook, Chicagoans will recognize both their streets and their stories, and readers from outside the city will get an intimate portrait of one of America's most iconic cities.

The best personal essays from a contested region, from Belt Publishing's ten years as a press.

Everyone has an opinion on the Rust Belt--whether it's the real America or a place that no longer exists called by a name that has long outlived its usefulness, as our own president has said. But undeniably, there's something that connects the post-industrial cities. Maybe the question isn't what defines that connection, but who.

Over the past ten years, Belt Publishing has been putting out books that prioritize the voices of the many people who live here. We've collected our favorite writing from across our collections, from Pittsburgh to Detroit, Chicago to St. Louis, Milwaukee to Cleveland, and more. Here, writers document growing up in segregated St. Louis and elucidate the coded Islamophobia of southern Michigan. Writers include Megan Stielstra, 2022 Missouri Author of the Year Vivian Gibson, Aaron Foley, Kathleen Rooney, Sarah Kendzior, and more.

Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break. But then, after another disappointing audition, a charismatic scene partner says he has a fun gig for her. Soon, Ally is making easy money working for a guerrilla-marketing outfit called The Set Up. Now she's getting lots of practice pretending to be someone she's not--but each job seems more suspicious than the last.

Marshall is a washed-up journalist, teaching a summer class at the university and struggling to keep his students (and himself) focused on his planned lessons. Someone has been leaving copies of his old articles on his lectern every morning, forcing him to revisit the story of a decades-old tragedy and mistakes he's made ... both personal and professional.

Web, a quirky loner, has always been ready to pick up and go at a moment's notice. In fact, he's very good at not being noticed, at least not unless he wants to be. That's been helpful in his years working for the Set Up, but the new hire's questions are starting to make Web feel less confident about his work as a con man.

What is the Set Up, and who's playing whom? The search for answers leads Ally, Web, and Marshall from the glitz of the Strip to the grit of Sin City's strip-mall suburbs, and from an abandoned Unification compound to a deadly bar mitzvah. As their paths converge, this unlikely trio uncover the shadowy power dynamics and shifting personalities that shape a city.

Vivian Gibson's bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood has been hailed by critics as a spare, elegant jewel of a work and a love letter to Gibson's childhood.

Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as progress. A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson's large family―her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father―and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson's words, This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.

Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, The Last Children of Mill Creek is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history―or for anyone who was once a child.