Megan Giddings Reimagines the Rust Belt
Reimagining the Rust Belt in Megan Giddings' "The Woman Could Fly."
James Purdy’s Outrages Against the Establishment
Purdy’s harshest words were consistently aimed at the literary apparatus that he felt was inherently unable to appreciate his formally deliberate but thematically audacious fiction.
Ohio in Toni Morrison’s Words
As much as Ohioans like me and others want to claim Morrison, her words belong to the world.
Rushdie and Free Speech, from Tehran to Pittsburgh
Literature isn’t just under attack in Iran, China, or El Salvador, however.
My American Windows
"I didn’t know it then, but I needed those windows...that wall of blue between my heart and the world."
Sometimes it S n o w s in A p r i l
"The snow f e l l like a miffed god took bites of cumulus clouds—spat them down / from heaven, o n t o my Midwest."
On Hope, History, and Storytelling in Flint
Kelsey Ronan’s 'Chevy in the Hole' reimagines the city some of us never knew.
Welcome to ReCreation Land
Strip-mining destroyed the landscape of central Ohio--and the lungs of many workers. What will it take to build a healthier future?
Treaty of Mendota
A poem of erasure.
Faith in Movement
Andy Warhol, the Rust Belt, and me.
Blessed Nativity of Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh
In the Carnegie Museum's holiday presepio, a mingling of the sacred and profane.
Hair and History in ‘Akron’s Harlem’
On Howard Street, in downtown Akron, Black life and culture flourished.