It’s members appreciation week on Belt! What does that mean? We give away stuff. To our members. Like this stuff:
- 1 Vegan dinner for 10 people at Town Hall
- 1 $50 gift card to Town Hall
- 1 Brand new Rust Belt Chic t-shirt (perfect for our out-of-town members)
- 10 signed copies of Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology (also perfect for our out-of-town members)
- 2 $10 gift cards to Mac’s Backs on Coventry
- 10 $20 gift cards to Town Hall
To enter the drawing, all you have to do is:
1.) Be a member.
2.) Reply to this post and answer these 2 questions:
Which is your favorite Belt story we have run so far, and why?
Browse the archives here (Features), here (Commentaries) and here (Essays). We’ll help refresh your memory by putting different stories from the archives up every day.
That’s it! On Tuesday, December 3 we will assign each reply a number, and then plug the numbers into random.org to choose winners. Be sure to include your name in your response.
Disclaimer: we might use some responses in our promotions.
On of my favs because I learned a lot. We all know housing is an issue and deteriorated neighborhoods are not healthy for anyone, but this made me consider both sides of the argument (tearing down- rehabbing) and the associated costs.
Thnks for sharing!
https://beltmag.com/clevelands-teardown-runaround/
AND I am vegan so I hope I win lol
Thanks for the fun raffle!
My favorite article is THE ROOTS OF RUST BELT CHIC, By Edward McClelland, because I learned so much. Keep up the good work and keep putting it out there! – Thomas Mulready
I really enjoyed a Tale of Two Foreclosures because there has been very little written about the thousands of individuals who actually lost their homes due to the sub-prime crisis: The feature was very well-written, and it was very interesting to see how people dealt with their situations and what lessons were learned.
“Rediscovering Russell Atkins.” While certain parts of Cleveland history are widely known (especially sports!), we don’t keep much depth in collective memory. Pieces that dig up what we’ve forgotten are always welcome additions.
Mine is “Pretty Things to Hang on a Wall” by Eric Anderson. He’s a strong writer with muscular images. His anger and his art burn. You feel it in the article, you feel it from the precision with which he writes. The art is in him, and so is Cleveland’s beautiful decay.
My favorite article was “Rediscovering Russel Atkins”. I had never heard of the artist prior to the article and reading it sent me down the rabbit hole a bit to find his work. I actually really enjoy it and am grateful for Belt sharing him with me. I love Belt, having something like this here in sunny Cleveland, Ohio makes me love living here all that much more.
thanks for all these thoughtful comments!
remember to include your name with your response so we ensure you are a member and enter you into the drawing.
Everything on foreclosure. . .esp. A tale of 2 Foreclosures. And thanks for acknowledging the impact race has had on credit.
Amy Glesius
My favorite essay thus far has been Amanda Shaffer’s essay on her experience as a student with busing. Her words were tough and frank, as she wrestled with issues of class, race and education. I found it compelling, insightful and brave.
from Piet van Lier:
Busing: A White Girl’s Tale,” because it’s a perspective one doesn’t hear too often about desegregation and it tells not only about the history, but also about the affect on the writer’s decision’s and course in life.
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I loved “Genius Loci” By Douglas Max Utter…a story that introduced me to the late Cleveland artist Randall Tiedman, a man of the rust belt making his art while living among us. Gorgeous writing and artwork.
I’ll have to go with “A Tale of Two Foreclosures.”
Excellent work all around, Belt! I can’t wait to join your august stable of writers.
I really enjoyed “Busing: A White Girl’s Tale” because it is an experience I never had and it was really thought provoking. Her perspective made me think about a lot of different things, past and present.
I had to love–and hate!–the essay on the difficulty of meeting and dating men in Cleveland. And how could you not jump into the debate that sprang up around Richey Piiparinen’s critique on the West 25th bar scene. You know the magazine is working well when it starts riling people up!
I really enjoyed the Biggest Little-Known Book Award because I learned something about Cleveland’s past and present (and maybe future?) that I knew nothing about. The “I Had No Idea Cleveland…” story always fascinates me because it opens up unknown sides to my hometown. There is so much — too much — forgotten history in Cleveland.
How could I not pick Kevin and Michael’s piece on Russell Atkins? It’s a story that combines journalism and literary criticism in a way that isn’t formulaic, or self-consciously genre-bending, but necessary to tell the story of a poet who too many of the rest of us–especially the poets–have forgotten. It’s a story that does what the best poetry does, too — it helps us remember, and helps us praise. I’m grateful to Belt for publishing it.
My favorite: the paper route empire. The wealthy CEO who tipped me 5 quarters every Christmas, being chased by the German Shepard police dog that escaped its owners clutch, and leaping headlong into the lake to escape the torrent of pursuing wasps remain a capstone of my youth and a turning point into adulthood. The paper route provided shape and insight into my future career path. It provided the foundation for business and human psychology that carried me forward. The story offered an interesting and rewarding return to a simpler time when I was in charge, funded beyond my peers and ready to tackle a new day. Even a rainy or snowy one!
“PRETTY THINGS TO HANG ON A WALL”….great writing!
Nanette Yannuzzi
My favorite is Jacqueline Marino’s “The Biggest Little-Known Book Award.” It sheds much-deserved light on the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, “the only book award in America focused on issues of racism and diversity.” And it’s right here in Cleveland. I also like how Marino delves into the philanthrophy of Edith Anisfield Wolf and her father, John Anisfield. My favorite line: “Young Edith began sharing her father’s interest in social causes at age 12.” A powerful piece.
My fave was “A Tale of Two Foreclosures.” Not only was it nicely written and observed, but it dramatized all kinds of structural issues about who can and who cannot build financial stability through home ownership in our society, and what that has to do with the fabric of our northern industrial cities. For me, it connected the dots between the story told in Beryl Satter’s *Family Properties,* our recent/current foreclosure process, and the experience of my Cleveland Heights neighbors in the 2000s.
This is a tough question to answer. Each week, I marvel at something you’ve chosen to publish. Edward McClelland’s “The Roots of Rust Belt Chic” is one of my favorites because it made me see my hometown, Youngstown, through a sympathetic outsider’s eyes. I also enjoyed Kristin Ohlson’s essay about leaving Cleveland because it captured the hold the city has on so many of us.
This is tough, to pick just one. I really liked “A Tale of Two Foreclosures” and “Busing: A White Girl’s Tale” but I would have to give my vote to Eric Anderson’s essay. Strong writing, and it just got to me in a special way.
For me it is between Rediscovering Russell Atkins and Busing: A White Girl’s Tale. I’m not from Cleveland and actually grew up on a small farming town in Idaho…so the historical perspective of both allowed me to see (and feel) another dimension of Cleveland and how members of the community have shaped the city and how the city has shaped members of the community.
It’s a tough call! I had to go back to read some articles and reread others. I was unable to find one that amused me — the screed about how hard it is to date in Cleveland. Has it been taken down?
Anyway, it’s a toss-up. Either “The Roots of Rust Belt Chic” for being such a good overview, or “Busing: A White Girl’s Tale” for its straightforward and meaningful glimpse into an important experience. If forced to choose one, I’ll take the latter.
Oh, I also liked “Small Engine Repair” for being short and punchy. 🙂
I enjoyed Busing: A White Girls Tale. Amanda Shaffer is a few years younger than me and I was away at school when busing started in Cleveland. Being a Rocky River graduate in 1976 there was a bit of a disconnect between her experience and mine. She showed me a slice of Cleveland I certainly did not have a chance to see. Thank you Amanda for your story.
My favorite is Laura Putre’s story THE TINY RECORD EMPIRE IN CLEVELAND. I loved thinking about the Boddies running around Cleveland with all their crazy equipment, recording any and all music (good and bad) going on in the city. Thanks for the great story!
My favorite…”The Roots of Rust Belt Chic” by Edward McClelland – a great history of what Youngstown was and is today – my entire life have visited family there until a few years ago when the last died. It’s great to have these features, commentaries and essays as a permanent record of life here, of the working class, of life in places not “hollywood” but is real and important.
It’s been hard to pick a favorite. From the original collection, my favorite was Eric Anderson’s “Pretty Things to Hang on the Wall” on the virtue of this sentence alone: “While I spent my time being afraid to want something beautiful, they actually went to art school.” I grew up in rural Ohio, not the city. But he got me. From the online magazine, my favorite so far was “Busing: A White Girl’s Tale.” It was vulnerable, it helped me better understand Cleveland, and it put words to the racial realities we white people just don’t talk about.
Christina Kukuk
I vote for the busing story, because it was so much like my own experience of being bused in the 1970s.
I enjoyed Amanda Shaffer’s “Bussing: A White Girl’s Tale” because I was raised and went to school in Lexington,Ohio, a village an hour south of here. We were all bussed, but to the same school. There was only one high school in town, so the idea of being sent cross-town to go to a different school was nothing I had any experience with. I remember it being a big deal in Cleveland and other cities and it was fascinating to read one person’s experience with a concept so foreign to my own experience. Thanks.
First of all, am I doing this correctly? After all my years in Catholic School (8 total yet the pull lingers on) I like to follow directions. That was a take away from Catholic School…oh and also, that you should always be very kind to everyone and helpful because when Jesus comes back you will not recognize him. He could be … Anyone. I am a fan of Rust Belt Chic and BELT and almost any other writing about Cleveland (and Youngstown). I like the voices and the familiarity of the stories. Like the kisses blown to you as you are driving away from home the first time, there is a poignancy … Some sentimentality without being too sentimental. Is it fair to claim this story of Laura Putre’s as my pick? Gosh I hope so. ” Always a Bridesmaid.” Not just because it is about the Fellowship program or even that my actual name is in it (twice) but because I like the story. I like the attention to detail. I like the way the panelists are described and the comments shared in this point-of-view account. Thank you Laura for some great moments … your perceptions of the panel– as one of those talented Cleveland writers they so aptly described. So that is my pick. Oh, and just for the record my public service announcement was just that…a warning that jackhammers were close…because you know all of that loud drilling down can be …well, startling.
My favorite so far was Laura Putre’s essay, Always A Bridesmaid. I appreciated the peek into her life as a writer, and her writing seemed very natural and unforced.
As several have mentioned, picking a favorite story is like picking your favorite kid. But I’ll single out Doug Guth’s “Keeping It Real”. I moved from San Diego to Cleveland in the mid 90’s and have become an enthusiastic booster of Cleveland’s charms but the contrast between haves and have-nots is sobering. The contrast between experienced politicians and optimistic entrepreneurs is a reminder that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done by both camps in order for Cleveland to evolve from its storied past.
My favorite Belt story is Wendy Patton’s “Foreclosure: A Personal History.” Her narrative resonates in a way that statistics fail to mimic, and she thoughtfully illustrates the devastating effects of predatory mortgage lending and foreclosures. Belt consistently captures local stories through an intimate lens yet simultaneously frames these issues in a way that demonstrates their human complexity. Thank you for your work!
“I’ll be home for Cleveland” resonated with me since I’m a transplant and expect to move out of state in the upcoming months. Since I arrived from Milwaukee to attend law school in the 1980s the city itself has tanked and begun to rebound but doesn’t seem to have found itself, much like a self-conscious teenager changing outfits several times before heading out with friends for an evening of fun. Congrats on the publication. There’s plenty of room for you on the city’s literary landscape.