Dina Elenbogen

Anthology, from back cover: " Rust Belt Chicago collects essays, journalism, fiction, and poetry from more than fifty writers who speak both directly and elliptically to the concerns the city shares with the region at large."

Chicago is built on a foundation of meat and railroads and steel, but its identity long ago stretched past manufacturing. A city of opportunity from the get-go, it continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization. But the problems that plague the Belt don’t disappear once you get past Gary. In fact, they’re often amplified. Chicago’s glittering downtown towers stand in sharp contrast to the struggling south and west sides. A city defined by movement that’s the anchor of the Midwest, bound to its neighbors by a shared ecosystem and economy, Chicago’s complicated – both of the Belt and beyond it. Which makes it a perfect subject for a book.

"Apples of the Earth is a marvelous first collection. In Elegant, luminous language, Elenbogen evokes the places and people she loves and grieves over. Her leaps of imagination are startling: in one deft instant, she can connect the common-place objects to motions of the spirit and the heart. Her tone is everywhere sure and clear, the voice of a born poet." -Lynne Sharon Schwartz*