"Rust Belt Chicago Anthology" (Book essay)

Belt Publishing, Feb 26. 21, 2017

My essay, “Iliana” is included in 2017’s Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology. I’m in amazing company: Editor Martha Bayne assembled a stellar batch of writers including Aleksandar Hemon, Zoe Zolbrod, Kathleen Rooney, Kevin Coval, Eileen Favorite and Bill Savage. The book’s journalism, essays, fiction and poetry explore how Chicago's "foundation of meat and railroads and steel" makes for a complicated political and cultural ecosystem. My contribution is about living on the Indiana/Illinois border, and between two places. 

Excerpt: “Loans took me to college down south and when a frat-boy called me Region-Rat, I knew Hammond was considered scummy. There, I explored my interests—a privilege most people I knew never had. It was also where I discovered the power of language. If I talked about My Dinner with Andre, I’d find more people who’d seen it and they’d introduce me to more things that sparked my interest. As I discovered Stein, Barnes, Woolf, Kubrick, Linklater, Kieślowski, and Campion, I started to feel more alive.”