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Small Town Sins
I’d recently finished my junior year of high school and was kicking around a few ideas on how to get out of Locksburg, a Central Pennsylvania backwater I’d wanted to flee ever since I was old enough to misspell its name.
Dreaming of Chicago with “The Bear”
The untamed energy of the show woke something in me. Carmy’s life in Chicago was real. Authentic. Social. I knew that restaurant and those people. How many times had I eaten at a joint like that?
Birds of Paradise
Alison Vilag pays attention for a living. She counts migrating ducks at Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, near Paradise, Michigan. It's key to getting a pulse on different bird populations. But for Alison, counting ducks is more than just science – it's an escape from the expectations of others.
Tenth Anniversary of Belt Magazine
An evening of writerly expression at White Whale.
How to Become an American
Excerpted from How to Become an American: A History of Immigration, Assimilation, and Loneliness, by Daniel Wolff, published December 2022 by University of South Carolina Press.
Two Tinder Poems by Evelyn Zelmer
Two poems by Evelyn Zelmer composed from Tinder biographies of Ohio.
Forgetting How to Swim
We would laugh so hard in a place not meant for laughter, feel family in a place not meant for home. We had built a brotherhood in a place meant only to be punitive.
Organization and Immunity
Hundreds of angry miners crowded around the machine, several attacking it with hammers and axes. Finally, fifteen sticks of dynamite were placed under the motor, and a firing wire and exploders attached. A few minutes later there was a terrific blast and the shovel was reduced to a tangled mass of wreckage.
My Midwestern Fleetwood Mac
She came from a dying Rust Belt town in southeast Ohio, and I came from a famously dying Rust Belt town an hour north of Detroit. We were both oldest children, with the same letter leading our first and last name. Our birthdays were one day apart. And, we both loved Fleetwood Mac.
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.
Unlocking the Gateway to the West
My city has also not been particularly adept at acknowledging its sins, past or present, let alone attempting to atone for them.
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