PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY, Finalist
Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook by Sonya Huber
NBCC AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Finalist
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza by Zito Madu
ALA STONEWALL ISRAEL FISHMAN
NON-FICTION AWARD, Honor Title
Be Not Afraid of My Body by Darius Stewart
INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARDS
Silver Medalist for Best Biography, Honorable Mention for Best LGBTQ+ Themed Book
Trust the Circle by Paloma Martinez-Cruz
CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS AWARD, Shortlist
Chicago House Music: Culture and Community by Marguerite L.
Harrold
Major Arcana
by JOHN PISTELLI
It begins with a gunshot: a public suicide on a university campus. The blast radius of this tragedy expands to envelop fifty years of history and two of the grandest characters in recent American fiction: Simon Magnus, a comic-book writer who transfigured popular culture turned gender activist who transfigures language, and Ash del Greco, an online occultist who by the age of twenty has seen to the end of everything and wants to prove the superiority of mind over matter. With a decades-spanning but tightly-knit plot, written in an expansive style, Major Arcana canvasses America’s inner life and moral history from coast to coast and across two generations in a delirious saga about art, magic, love, and death.
ISBN 9781953368928
Paperback
6 x 9 | 344pp | $24.95
Pub. Date APR 22 2025
“Pistelli is sweeping and satiric, tender and deliciously strange; a fine melding of Don DeLillo, Alan Moore, and the great noticers of the human condition who came barreling through the nineteenth century. A tremendous and serious book, it is better than almost any fiction being produced today.” ―Ross Barkan
“Major Arcana is a bravura, hallucinatory tarot of art, madness, and the fatal poignance of being alive. To read it is to hold the heart of the world in one’s hands.”
—Bruce Wagner, author of The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers
JOHN PISTELLI is the author of bestselling Substack Grand Hotel Abyss, home of a regular newsletter called Weekly Readings and the literary podcast The Invisible College, as well as the eight-year archive of an award-winning literary blog at johnpistelli.com. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Minnesota and has been writing and teaching for almost two decades. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
Football Sissy
by JACK BRENNAN
In Jack Brennan’s decades-long career, he covered Cincinnati pro sports before taking on the job of PR director for the Bengals. He wrangled sports stories, reporters, and players. He played pickup basketball in his neighborhood and raised three kids with his wife, to whom he was devoted. But Brennan also had a private passion: dressing as a woman.
He kept his crossdressing life a secret for years but came out publicly in The Athletic in 2021. Football Sissy offers a view of his dual lives, and the slow path to his decision to become one of the first men in the NFL to come out as LGBTQ+.
ISBN 9781540270047
Paperback
6 x 9 | 170pp | $20.00
Pub. Date SEP 09 2025
Told with the characteristic humor of Brennan’s sports columns, Football Sissy is a peek at life inside the NFL and a heartwarming tale of acceptance and love.
“ This is fearlessly honest stuff from a great human who went through things I never knew about. I admire him all the more for telling this story.” —Phil Simms, Super Bowl XXI MVP
“Back in his football days, Jack Brennan was perpetually the most delightful person in the room. None of us knew that he had a secret that he was deathly afraid to share. Now, in his own inimitable, hilarious and courageous style, he’s sharing that secret and letting us inside his world and the world of professional football.”
—Joe
Posnanski, author of The Baseball 100
JACK BRENNAN worked 44 years in sports, first as a beat sports writer then as PR director for the Cincinnati Bengals, where he and his staff won the 2006 Pete Rozelle Award. Brennan grew up in Dallas, where he played high school football and held Cowboys season tickets. He and his wife Valerie have been married for 51 years.
Amelia Bloomer:
Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon
by SARA CATTERALL
Those who recognize the name Amelia Bloomer usually do so because of her namesake garment. While she had been a rational dress advocate—calling on women to eschew corsets and petticoats in favor of trousers, shorter skirts, and sensible boots—it was “but an incident” in the larger story of her life. Bloomer refused to be swayed by social norms and had cutting responses to those who tried to intimidate or shame her and her friends, a group that included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
ISBN 9781953368898
Paperback
6 x 9 | 304pp | $26.00
Pub. Date MAR 04 2025
This deeply researched biography by Sara Catterall follows the arc of Bloomer’s life: her humble upbringing in upstate New York, her role in the temperance movement, her years at The Lily, her groundbreaking position as deputy postmaster in Seneca Falls, her troubled health, and her move to Council Bluff, where she continued to influence women’s suffrage within the more flexible new governments of the West.
“A timely and exhaustively researched biography . . . that resonate[s], given our current political climate.” —Brenda Barrera, Booklist, starred review
“A worthwhile reconsideration of an overlooked figure.” Publishers Weekly
SARA CATTERALL is a writer with a Drama degree from NYU, and an MLIS from Syracuse University. She has worked as a librarian at Cornell University, as a reviewer and interviewer for Shelf Awareness, and as an indexer. Her work has appeared in NEH’s Humanities magazine and The Sun, and she co-authored Ottoman Dress and Design in the West: A Visual History of Cultural Exchange. She lives in Ithaca, NY.
The Set Up
by JON WYNN
Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break when a scene partner has a fun gig for her. Soon Ally is making money at a marketing outfit called the Set Up, and getting practice pretending to be someone she’s not.
Marshall is a washed-up journalist teaching a summer class when he finds himself forced to revisit a decades-old tragedy.
Web is a quirky loner who is very good at not being noticed. This has been helpful in his work for the Set Up, but the new hire’s questions are beginning to undermine his confidence.
ISBN 9781953368942
Paperback
6 x 9 | 256pp | $20.00
Pub. Date MAY 20 2025
What is the Set Up, and who is playing whom? Ally, Web, and Marshall uncover the shadowy power dynamics and shifting personalities that shape a city.
“The Set Up is an old-school crime noir in the best way, a captivating ride from start to finish. We deserve more competent literary thrillers, and The Set Up more than delivers with a undeniable plot and sharp writing.”
—Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief, Chicago Review of Books
“ Wynn’s fierce wit, consumptive characters, and keen sociological eye transform the glittering Strip into the ultimate trick mirror. A mustread, and one of the smartest and most fun thrillers I’ve read all year.”
—Margot
Douaihy, author of Scorched Earth and Blessed Water
JON WYNN is a professor and the department chair of sociology at the UMass Amherst. He has written The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York and Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Salon, and elsewhere.
The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook
by NINA MUKERJEE FURSTENAU
There’s more to rhubarb than you thought. The distinctive plant was initially used as an herbal medicine, and it eventually became a favorite baking ingredient and was known stateside as the “pie plant.” Today, it’s considered a superfood thanks to its high levels of vitamin C and potassium and fiber.
ISBN 9781953368980
Paperback
5 x 7 | 190pp | $18.00
Pub. Date APR 01 2025
In over sixty recipes, food journalist and author Nina Mukerjee Furstenau leads readers on a journey through the extensive applications of the tart red stalk. Grill up some ribs flavored with rhubarb and blueberry, refresh your guests with rhubarb lemon fizzes, or keep it classy with a rhubarb and cream cheese glacé. This handy little book also includes tips on selecting, preparing, storing, and preserving rhubarb so you always have some ready to go. From classics to new twists, The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook makes the best-dressed member of your garden shine in new and delicious ways.
NINA MUKERJEE FURSTENAU is a food journalist and writer with interest in food, identity, and culture. She has written five books, including her memoir, Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland, which won the MFK Fisher Book Award, among other accolades. In addition to the books Green Chili & Other Impostors, Food & Culture, Tasty! Mozambique, and Savor Missouri, her podcast, Canned Peaches, is available through NPR. She also writes stories and essays for magazines and current media. You can find her work at ninafurstenau.com.
Pittsburgh in 50 Maps
by STENTOR DANIELSON
TISBN 9781953368850
Hardcover
8 x 8 | 136pp | $30.00
Pub. Date MAR 18 2025
here are countless ways to map a city. Roads, bridges, and waterways help you navigate the twists and turns; topography gives you the lay of the land; population trends show you a region’s changing fortunes. But the best maps let you feel what a city’s really like. Whether you call it the Steel City, the City of Bridges, City of Champions, Hell with the Lid Off, or even the Paris of Appalachia, Pittsburgh’s distinctive character is undeniable. Pittsburgh in 50 Maps considers the boundaries of the city’s neighborhoods (plus Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood), the legacy of the steel industry, and how immigration continues to shape the city. You’ll also find the areas with the highest concentrations of bike lanes, supermarkets, tree cover, and fiberglass dinosaurs. Each colorful map offers a new perspective on one of America’s most consistently surprising cities and the people who call it home.
Sure to be a conversation starter for Pittsburgh locals, transplants, and expats, Pittsburgh in 50 Maps is for anyone keen to understand the city in new and unexpected ways.
STENTOR DANIELSON has been a map nerd since reading The Lord of the Rings in third grade. After a childhood spent in both western and eastern Pennsylvania, they earned a BA in Geography from Colgate University and a PhD in Geography from Clark University. Since 2009 they have lived in and around Pittsburgh while teaching geography and environmental studies at Slippery Rock University. In 2015, they founded Mapsburgh, an online shop making paper cutout street maps and fantasy-style maps of real places.
Great Lakes in 50 Maps
by ALEX B. HILL
The Great Lakes region is home to one-tenth of the US population, and one-quarter of Canada’s. Even if we remember the mnemonic HOMES, we might forget what a natural wonder they are. Cartographer Alex B. Hill shifts our perspectives and offers a fresh look at the five lakes and the vibrant region they define. Split into four categories—history & culture, ecology, infrastructure, and physical—these fifty-plus maps show the lakes’ influence and confluences, from the Underground Railroad to monarch butterfly migration. See how many NFL teams play on a Great Lake, where shipwrecks and Bigfoot sightings cluster, the lakes’ effect on snowfall, and even how “not so Great” lakes have vied for (and in one case, temporarily won) a coveted Great designation. Shrinking wetlands, oil spills, and rising temperatures due to climate change reflect both the fragility of the lakes and the vital role they play.
ISBN 9781540270009
Hardcover
11 x 8.5 | 128pp | $30.00
Pub. Date JUN 03 2025
Great Lakes in 50 Maps is perfect for anyone who appreciates the history, nature, and future of the world’s greatest group of lakes.
ALEX B. HILL is a data director focused on community research in Detroit. He is the author of Detroit in 50 Maps and is a regular mapping contributor to Detroit PBS, Model D Media, and the Detroit Free Press.
She Walks in Beauty
by DAWN POWELL
For Linda Shirley, her residence in a family boarding house is a fact to be hidden, ignored, and, eventually, escaped. She aims for a better life and tries desperately to win the approval of the town’s elite, particularly the popular Courtenay Stall, over whom she pines. Her younger sister, Dorrie, is a dreamer who not only tolerates but often delights in the colorful guests of the house, from the reluctantly retired theater troupers to the glamorous young woman of ill-repute, the bed-bound intellectual in the attic to the circus snake charmer who keeps her “babies” in ill-secured boxes under her bed.
To Powell, “satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.” She Walks in Beauty is satire in the most insightful sense, showing the clarity and cloudiness of two very different sisters’ worldviews. This Belt Revivals edition includes a new introduction by critic Ilana Masad.
x 8.5 | 200pp | $18.00
Date JUN 17 2025
“For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion.” –Gore Vidal
DAWN POWELL (1896–1965) was a prolific writer and novelist. She was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, and lived in her aunt’s boarding house after running away from her troubled home. Powell features the Midwest in much of her writing and is known for her unflinching social satire that is humorous without being malicious. Ernest Hemingway called her his “favorite living writer.”
Alice Adams
by BOOTH TARKINGTON
Tarkington’s 1921 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, now available in an attractive Belt Revivals edition.
Alice Adams is young and pretty, but she struggles to improve her station. Her world revolves around dances put on by richer girls, for which she ingeniously strives to turn her less fashionable dress into something more fashionable and explain away the embarrassing behavior of her younger brother. Money structures this unnamed small town in the Midwest, but Alice’s father has never made much of himself, thus foiling her mother’s constant desire to see Alice and the rest of the family better situated.
ISBN 9781540270061 Paperback
5.5 x 8.5 | 176pp | $18.00
Pub. Date SEP 23 2025
Will Alice’s future prospects improve when Mr. Adams finally decides to go into business for himself making glue? Will her latest handsome, kind suitor stay around long enough for an engagement? Or will the pernicious forces of greed, gossip, and shame in 1920s America bring them all down?
BOOTH TARKINGTON was at the height of his fame when this novel was published: he was considered the preeminent American novelist of the day, a celebrity who would also serve a term representing his native Indiana in Congress. Alice Adams was similarly famous after its publication; a 1935 film adaptation was nominated for Best Picture at the 8th Academy Awards. Today, this lauded chronicler of the Midwest is no less fascinating, and his novels as worthy, suspenseful, and poignant as they were a century ago.
What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
by Elizabeth Catte
Catte’s assessment of America’s fascination with Appalachia analyzes trends in contemporary writing, presents a brief history unpacking stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians rather than for Appalachians.
ISBN 9780998904146 | 5 x 7 | 200pp | $16.95
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza by Zito Madu
2024 National Books Critics Circle Finalist
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza is an unforgettable travel memoir about the mysterious transformations that may lurk inside us all. With nods to Calvino and Borges, this surrealist debut memoir takes us into the labyrinth of memory and the monsters lurking there.
ISBN 9781953368669 | 5 x 7 | 184pp | $19.95
The Last Children of Mill Creek by
Vivian Gibson
The Last Children of Mill Creek, Vivian Gibson’s bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood, has been hailed by critics as a spare, elegant jewel of a work and a love letter to Gibson’s childhood.
ISBN 9781948742641 | 5 x 7 | 160pp | $18.95
Midwest Futures
by Phil Christman
Addressing the question of what “the Midwest” is, the author divides his exploration of Midwestern identity— past and present—into thirty-six brief, interconnected essays. The collection is sometimes sardonic, often uproarious, and consistently thought-provoking as it considers this misunderstood region and its people.
ISBN 9781953368089 | 5 x 7 | 160pp | $16.95
Love and Industry
by Sonya Huber
Finalist for the 2024 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award, Art of the Essay
Sonya Huber offers a candid, lyrical look inside the unsung world of exurban Illinois and takes seriously Chicagoland’s farthest reaches—a gritty, sweeping region full of its own distinct feelings of almostness—and transforms them into a map of the heart, a ramshackle territory marked by memory, family, regret, determination, and wonderment.
ISBN 9781953368584 | 5 x 7 | 192pp | $19.95
Chicago House Music
by Marguerite L. Harrold
Here is the story of a music genre that originated in the city’s Black, gay underground in the late 1970s and became one of the most popular genres in the world. With interviews and firsthand accounts from the people who created and supported it, Chicago House Music is the history of an art form that continues to be a force for social interaction, spiritual liberation, and community.
ISBN 9781953368737 | 6 x 9 | 208pp | $24.00
Best of the Rust Belt
Edited by Anne Trubek
Introduction by Anna Clark
Many have an opinion on the Rust Belt—whether it’s the “real America” or a place that no longer exists. Over the past decade, Belt Publishing has been putting out books that prioritize the voices of the people who live here. This is our favorite writing from across our collections, from Pittsburgh to Detroit, Chicago to St. Louis, Milwaukee to Cleveland, and elsewhere.
Rethinking Fandom
by Craig Calcaterra
With his characteristic wit and piercing commentary, Calcaterra asserts that fans have more power than they realize to change how their teams behave, and confronts endemic problems with the “sports-industrial complex,” mismanagement, political controversy, health hazards, and ethical issues. ISBN 9781953368232 |
| $17.95
Creative Nonfiction
Edited by Lee Gutkind & Leslie Rubinkowski
The thirty-two essays collected here bring together some of the finest work Creative Nonfiction published over its seventy-eight issues. With an introduction by founder and editor Lee Gutkind, this collection captures the evolution of a genre and the amazing work of the little magazine that helped make it all happen.
ISBN 9781953368812 | 6 x 9 | 376pp | $28.00
Cat and Bird
by Kyoko Mori
From the critically acclaimed author of Shizuko’s Daughter (a New York Times Notable Book) and Yarn comes a fascinating new memoir about animals, loss, and finding a home in the world.
ISBN 9781953368690 | 5 x 7 | 216pp | $19.99
Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook
by Sara Bir
Sara Bir sets the humble pawpaw center stage, with detailed information on how to harvest, source, store, and cook with these uniquely Midwestern delicacies. The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook will inspire you to experiment in the kitchen and get out into the woods.
ISBN 9780998018898 | 5 x 7 | 136pp | $16.95
How To Speak Midwestern
by Edward McClelland
This book explains what Midwesterners say and how and why they say it. The author provides humorous definitions of jargon from the region, and includes detailed glossaries of slang from across the Midwest.
ISBN 9780997774276 | 5 x 7 | 152pp | $18.95
Be Not Afraid of My Body
by Darius Stewart
Honor Title, ALA Stonewall Award for Non-Fiction
A breathtaking memoir about growing up Black and gay in America, and the drive to transform the experience into a story that does justice to the multitudes we contain.
ISBN 9781953368904 | 5 x 7 | 276pp | $19.99
Neighborhood Guides
City Anthologies
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
KENTUCKY
MINNESOTA
MISSOURI
OHIO 9781948742801 The Dayton Anthology
9780985944162 . . . The Cleveland Anthology (Second ed .) . .
.00 9781948742672 Car Bombs to Cookie Tables (Youngstown) $26 00 9780996836739 . . . The Akron Anthology
PENNSYLVANIA
9781953368775 . . . Currents in the Electric City (Scranton) .
SOUTH DAKOTA
. City of Hustle (Sioux Falls)
WISCONSIN
9781948742382 The Milwaukee Anthology $20 00
Tarot Decks
Rust Belt Arcana
Our popular Rust Belt Arcana tarot deck is back in stock! The tarot deck features seventy-eight naturalist watercolor paintings by artist David Wilson. Wilson is the illustrator and co-author with Matt Stansberry of Rust Belt Arcana: Tarot and Natural History in the Exurban Wild (Belt 9781948742122). We are confident this is the first ever Rust Belt-themed tarot deck, and the prettiest one as well. Now with a new printed box!
ISBN 9781953368874 | 2.75 x 4.75 | $38.00
Great Lakes Tarot
has seventy-eight original illustrations featuring plants, animals, water, industry, and people of the region. This deck is for tarot fans (of course) but also for anyone interested in the Great Lakes region, enormous reserves of freshwater, fishing, shipping, wildflowers, ecosystems, coastlines, the Midwest, the Rust Belt, and Canada.
ISBN 9781953368881 | 2.75 x 4.75 | $38.00
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FOR BELT
“Belt Publishing . . . promotes a kind of progressive Rust Belt pride without succumbing to cliché or hipster irony.”
— Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times
“Belt anthologies offer readers an opportunity to find stories and perspectives from their place, in which they may recognize themselves.”
— Alastair Boone and Kriston Capps, CityLab
“[Belt] . . . has served as a thoughtful foil to national-media characterizations of the region as either hopelessly dystopic or cheerfully rebounding, sticking instead to a knotty middle.”
