Belt Publishing
Founded in 2013, Belt promotes voices from the Rust Belt, smart narrative and serious nonfiction on any topic, as well as commercial fiction with a regional foothold.
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Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook
9781948742719
Regular price $20.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Explore Pittsburgh through poetry and essays with this probing guide to the Steel City’s diverse locales.
Pittsburgh is made up of more than ninety different neighborhoods. And while The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook can’t detail every last one of them, it does its best, exploring the contrasts and contradictions that define the city’s neighborhoods and how they play out through the personal narratives of those who live there. Edited by Ben Gwin, in these pages you’ll find stories about:
· Old Lawrenceville, Garfield, and Squirrel Hill
· Swisshelm Park and Oakland in East Pittsburgh
· Crafton-Ingram, Thorn Street, and the bars of Dormont
· And much more
In over thirty poems and essays by lifetime residents, transplants, and transients, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook offers a portrait of a city that’s constantly being hailed for its renaissance but that is still marked by the old remnants of wealth inequality, gentrification, and racism.
The newest installment in Belt’s Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook is a book for anyone who thinks they know Pittsburgh, or just wishes they did.
Currents in the Electric City
9781953368775
Regular price $24.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%In Currents in the Electric City, an installment of Belt’s City Anthologies series, the story of Scranton gets told by the people who know it best.
Scranton, PA, is more than just the setting for The Office. It's a living city, one with a rich industrial and labor history, that also has a small-town feel. Who is considered “from Scranton” is fiercely guarded even as the city sees immigration from around the world. Neighborhood talk can reveal your family secrets before you even know them yourself, as Barbara J. Taylor writes. Pieces in this anthology talk about desires to leave, ties that bind, and decisions to stay, as well as impressions from newcomers to the Northeastern Pennsylvania hub. As coeditor Joe Kraus notes in his foreword, Scranton was once a prominent stop on the vaudeville circuit—vaudeville translating literally into “the voice of the city.” The chorus of voices that fill the poems and essays in this anthology tell a complicated story of the Electric city that many have heard of, but few know.
The Pittsburgh Anthology
9780985944193
Regular price $20.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
“Characterizing a place can be an elusive project, but The Pittsburgh Anthology is . . . diverse, surprising, eloquent, playful, scrappy, and tenacious.” —Ploughshares
Pittsburgh is ever-changing—once dusted with soot from the mills, parts of the city now gleam with the polish of new technologies and little remains of what had been there before. The essays and artwork in this anthology aim for the surprising, elusive stories that capture a Pittsburgh that is in transition. Contributors run the gamut from MacArthur-award winning photographer, LaToya Ruby Frazier to 15-year-old Nico Chiodi, the book’s youngest contributor who chronicles the doings of the North Side Banjo Club. “Everyone in this book,” writes editor, Eric Boyd, “is talking about the city, the things surrounding it; all of the pieces have been created with experience, intimacy, and personality. This book, I hope, will speak to you, not at you. Because we all know this city is changing. We’re just not exactly sure what that means.”
Included are contributions by Amy Jo Burns, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ben Gwin, Cody McDevitt, David Newman, and many more.
“These voices are varied and quirky, some polished and professional sounding, some a little rough around the edges. But they are uniformly interesting and genuine.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“What editor Eric Boyd has chosen to do is temper all of the Most Livable City rah rah with essays, stories and poems of a grittier, more complex nature.” —Pittsburgh Magazine
“This collection is stimulating for insiders and outsiders alike, a portrait Boyd has designed to be from-the-streets, warts-and-all.” —Bill O’Driscoll, PGH City Paper
Pittsburgh is ever-changing—once dusted with soot from the mills, parts of the city now gleam with the polish of new technologies and little remains of what had been there before. The essays and artwork in this anthology aim for the surprising, elusive stories that capture a Pittsburgh that is in transition. Contributors run the gamut from MacArthur-award winning photographer, LaToya Ruby Frazier to 15-year-old Nico Chiodi, the book’s youngest contributor who chronicles the doings of the North Side Banjo Club. “Everyone in this book,” writes editor, Eric Boyd, “is talking about the city, the things surrounding it; all of the pieces have been created with experience, intimacy, and personality. This book, I hope, will speak to you, not at you. Because we all know this city is changing. We’re just not exactly sure what that means.”
Included are contributions by Amy Jo Burns, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ben Gwin, Cody McDevitt, David Newman, and many more.
“These voices are varied and quirky, some polished and professional sounding, some a little rough around the edges. But they are uniformly interesting and genuine.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“What editor Eric Boyd has chosen to do is temper all of the Most Livable City rah rah with essays, stories and poems of a grittier, more complex nature.” —Pittsburgh Magazine
“This collection is stimulating for insiders and outsiders alike, a portrait Boyd has designed to be from-the-streets, warts-and-all.” —Bill O’Driscoll, PGH City Paper
Right Here, Right Now
9780997774269
Regular price $19.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
This anthology of essays, poetry and photography offers an intimate view of this iconic Rust Belt city—“one of the best books about Buffalo ever created” (Buffalo News).
Buffalo, New York, embodies a rich and varied history encompassing power, disappointment, artistic flair, racial injustice, and spicy chicken wings—all with Niagara Falls in its backyard. Told through the eyes of more than sixty-five artists, writers, and residents, Right Here, Right Now offer an unblinking, personal portrait of this often-overlooked city, capturing both its good and bad sides.
Edited by Jody K. Biehl, contributions from Wolf Blitzer, Lauren Belfer, Marv Levy, John Lombardo, Mary Ramsey, Robby Takac, and many more show why so many people love calling Buffalo home. Here, you’ll encounter:
Buffalo, New York, embodies a rich and varied history encompassing power, disappointment, artistic flair, racial injustice, and spicy chicken wings—all with Niagara Falls in its backyard. Told through the eyes of more than sixty-five artists, writers, and residents, Right Here, Right Now offer an unblinking, personal portrait of this often-overlooked city, capturing both its good and bad sides.
Edited by Jody K. Biehl, contributions from Wolf Blitzer, Lauren Belfer, Marv Levy, John Lombardo, Mary Ramsey, Robby Takac, and many more show why so many people love calling Buffalo home. Here, you’ll encounter:
- Frederick Law Olmstead’s impact on the city’s early design
- The pain and joy of biking through Lake Effect snow
- Racism in a gentrifying city and city planning initiatives
- The rise and fall of the Buffalo mafia
- A trip to a Western New York meat raffle.
