Belt Magazine

Belt Magazine is an online platform created for and by people in the Rust Belt and surrounding Midwest areas. Established by Anne Trubek in 2013, we specialize in engaging longform articles and touching personal stories, alongside poetry, opinions, interviews, and striking photography. Similar to our associated venture, Belt Publishing, we prioritize quality over volume and value community insights over mere data. Our mission is to share insightful and detailed narratives about the history, current events, and future prospects of this vibrant region.

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Articles

Church of the Insane Clown Posse

2 months ago | beltmag.com | Ross Benes

By Ross Benes The following is an excerpt from 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times by Ross Benes and released by the University Press of Kansas. Insane Clown Posse’s brilliance is best exemplified during an August 1999 Howard Stern segment. Live on air, the clowns and Sharon Osbourne argue about ICP dismissing the Osbourne-managed band Coal Chamber from its tour. Osbourne and Coal Chamber were suing ICP for breaching their contract.
Slap Shot in Flood City

Jan 16, 2025 | beltmag.com | Noelle Mateer

By Noelle Mateer While in Johnstown for a hockey tournament inspired by the 1977 Paul Newman comedy Slap Shot, I thought I’d pop into the flood museum. This was silly of me. One does not “pop in” to a museum dedicated to a tragedy that killed 2,000 people. But there was time on the tournament schedule between Brunch with Bruce and Beers with Bruce (Bruce was an extra in Slap Shot) so I walked to the Carnegie building on Washington Street, and went inside.
from Boyne River Daybook

Jan 10, 2025 | beltmag.com | Andrew P. Grace

By Andrew Grace The bagworms set up their crystal tenements. A noon moon. I have not had a drink yet. My thumb’s pike scars aren’t healed. A fox like a small rip in the fabricBetween hell and here. There is more to life than just life. This is where all the pain comes from. You can take pain and lay it outLike blank pages on a table. From above it looks like windowsOf a building full of snow. I shovel. You do too. We’re all in here digging.
Living the Tiny Cabin Life

Jan 8, 2025 | beltmag.com | Allison Torres Burtka

By Allison Torres BurtkaI’d heard about Postcard Cabins’ tiny cabins, nestled in wooded areas but within an easy drive of cities across the country, from a friend who wanted to rent one solo to unplug. But then I found out that there’s one within a 90-minute drive from where I live in the Detroit area, the cabins allow dogs, and some have room for four people.
Cleveland in the Kremlin

Dec 9, 2024 | beltmag.com | Taylor Dorrell

By Taylor Dorrell In the Cleveland offices of the Selmar Hess Publishing Company in 1907, the air seemed to hum with more than just the hustle of industrious salesmanship. Gathered away from their desks, a half dozen salesmen would form an audience to a curious intellectual theater where the clash between reform and revolution played out like a living dialectic. At the center stood MacBain Walker, a fervent proponent of socialism, his arguments infused with the rhetoric of Karl Marx.
Jan Beatty – Poet. Madwoman. Ally. - Belt Magazine

Dec 5, 2024 | beltmag.com | Fred Shaw

By Fred Shaw Dragstripping by Jan Beatty from the University of Pittsburgh PressWrite the poem you’re afraid to write. That’s the mantra-like advice Jan Beatty has been prescribing to budding poets of all stripes for over three decades, as the now-retired professor has seemingly had a guiding hand in the education of every writer in Pittsburgh.
To Catch a Craw - Belt Magazine

Dec 1, 2024 | beltmag.com | Laura Jackson

By Laura Jackson The following is an excerpt from Deep and Wild: On Mountains, Opossums, and Finding Your Way in West Virginia by Laura Jackson and released by Autumn House Press. Ben lifted the smooth, flat rock and plunged his hand into the shallows of the Greenbrier River. Water shot out from beneath his palm and the river bottom clouded over as he stirred up silt. The current swirled around our crouching bodies.
Pittsburgh’s Thriving Indigenous Legacy

Nov 28, 2024 | beltmag.com | Aakanksha Agarwal

By Aakanksha Agarwal This story was originally published by PublicSource, a nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. For more of its journalism, visit www.publicsource.org. Long before Pittsburgh became the steel city, it was home to thriving Indigenous communities living along the rivers and in the forests of this region. Though much has changed over the centuries, their legacy is still alive.
Shaft in Cleveland

Nov 25, 2024 | beltmag.com | Vince Guerrieri

By Vince GuerrieriIt’s hard to view “Shaft” as anything but a New York story. From the seedy Times Square where title character John Shaft’s private investigator’s office is located, to his Greenwich village haunts, to the uptown domain of Black radicals and a numbers kingpin based on a real-life Harlem gangster, the movie just screams Manhattan – aided by the brilliant direction of Gordon Parks, who used his skillful photographer’s eye to film on location in New York.
Charles “Teenie” Harris’s Photographs Make Space for Joy

Nov 14, 2024 | beltmag.com | Emma Riva

By Emma Riva Joy slips through your hands. Anger, malaise, and fear are heavy, long-lasting, but joy’s lightness and effervescence means it’s a lot harder to hold down. Think of how the one criticism stings more than ten compliments could over glow, or how a torrid affair with someone who mistreats you sends you down an emotional spiral more palpable than the security and peace from the kindness of someone who really loves you. Really feeling joy, as deeply as a sting or a spiral, is challenging.