About Ed Simon

Ed Simon is a contributing writer at Belt Magazine.

Charting the Pittsburgh Novel with Jake Oresick

"I do appreciate titles that use the terrain instead of making their characters sit inside. I also enjoy titles that reveal the parts of our region that outsiders are unlikely to see, like Homewood, Butler, or old school, residential Oakland. Yinzers don't gaze down from Grandview Avenue all day like the movies would have you believe."

2023-08-14T09:44:34-04:00August 9, 2023|

Belt’s 2023 Summer Fund Drive!

We've got more planned in the future, including a print anthology of Rust Belt poetry and the production of an original podcast about environmental calamities in our region, but none of this will be possible without your generous support. 

2023-07-17T08:24:13-04:00July 11, 2023|

Theorizing the Rust Belt

The mark of a brilliant idea, I would argue, is how jealous it makes you feel when you first learn about it. By that criterion, I was incredibly jealous of the organizers of the Rust Belt Humanities Lab.

2023-06-19T08:19:33-04:00June 17, 2023|

Wild and Wonderful Folklore of West Virginia

"Folklore is living and breathing, always evolving, and part of contemporary life—the twist you add to an heirloom recipe, a lullaby sung to a child at bedtime, the in-jokes that emerge among families, the vocabulary unique to a particular occupation, the beloved foodways of a certain place, the meme altered and shared among friends."

2022-12-26T10:17:58-05:00December 21, 2022|

When Labor Solidarity is a Game

Cooperative games don’t have to be cooperative just amongst players around a table, that cooperation can be the solidarity players feel (and act on) for workers.

2022-12-17T14:43:48-05:00December 14, 2022|