A Detroit Anthology


Book Description

A unique perspective of the Motor City, this anthology combines stories told by both longtime residents and newcomers from activists to teachers to artists to students. While Detroit has always been rich in stories, too often those stories are told back to the city by outsiders looking in, believing they can explain Detroit back to itself. As editor, Anna Clark writes in the introduction, "These are the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories full of nodding asides and knowing laughs. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical "you"―with the ratcheted up language that comes with it―and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate . . . You will not find 'positive' stories about Detroit in this collection, or 'negative' ones. But you will find true stories." Featuring essays, photographs, art, and poetry by Grace Lee Boggs, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, Dream Hampton, Steve Hughes, Jamaal May, Tracie McMillan, Marsha Music, Shaka Senghor, Thomas J. Sugrue, and many others.




A Detroit Anthology


Book Description

A unique perspective of the Motor City, this anthology combines stories told by both longtime residents and newcomers from activists to teachers to artists to students. While Detroit has always been rich in stories, too often those stories are told back to the city by outsiders looking in, believing they can explain Detroit back to itself. As editor, Anna Clark writes in the introduction, "These are the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories full of nodding asides and knowing laughs. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical "you"--with the ratcheted up language that comes with it--and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate . . . You will not find 'positive' stories about Detroit in this collection, or 'negative' ones. But you will find true stories." Featuring essays, photographs, art, and poetry by Grace Lee Boggs, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, Dream Hampton, Steve Hughes, Jamaal May, Tracie McMillan, Marsha Music, Shaka Senghor, Thomas J. Sugrue, and many others.




The Detroitist


Book Description

The Detroitist is an anthology of poems and stories about Detroit written by a daughter of Detroit. Natives of Detroit will recognize the places, faces, and history of their city. Newcomers to Detroit will learn about a Detroit that was and is a real locale, not a media-driven invention. Those returning to the Detroit their parents and grandparents fled will realize that they are not here to save Detroit, but to be saved by their new hometown. Words of hope. Words of grief. Words of joy. Words of sadness. Stories about a long-ago time. Stories about today and tomorrow. The Detroitist is a fascinating combination of poetry and prose that will entertain you, engage you, and educate you. The Detroitist is a book about Detroiters, for Detroiters, written by a Detroiter. If you are not already a Detroiter, The Detroitist will probably make you want to be a Detroiter. The Detroitist is about "Detroit Pride," past, present, and future. Marsha Battle Philpot, known in Detroit as "Marsha Music," was born in Detroit and grew up in Highland Park, Michigan. In 2012, she was awarded a prestigious Kresge Literary Arts Fellowship, and in 2015 she received a Knight Arts Award. She is also recognized as an exemplar of Detroit style.




The Poisoned City


Book Description

When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins. Through a series of disastrous decisions, the state government had switched the city’s water supply to a source that corroded Flint’s aging lead pipes. Complaints about the foul-smelling water were dismissed: the residents of Flint, mostly poor and African American, were not seen as credible, even in matters of their own lives. It took eighteen months of activism by city residents and a band of dogged outsiders to force the state to admit that the water was poisonous. By that time, twelve people had died and Flint’s children had suffered irreparable harm. The long battle for accountability and a humane response to this man-made disaster has only just begun. In the first full account of this American tragedy, Anna Clark's The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint’s poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making. Places like Flint are set up to fail—and for the people who live and work in them, the consequences can be fatal.




Stalking Detroit


Book Description

Edited by Georgia Daskalakis, Charles Waldheim, and Jason Young. Essays by Jerry Herron, Dan Hoffman, Patrik Schumacher and Christian Rogner.




Abandon Automobile


Book Description

A multicultural anthology of Detroit poetry from the 1930s to the present.




The Dogs of Detroit


Book Description

The 14 stories of The Dogs of Detroit each focus on grief and its many strange permutations. This grief alternately devolves into violence, silence, solitude, and utter isolation. In some cases, grief drives the stories as a strong, reactionary force, and yet in other stories, that grief evolves quietly over long stretches of time. Many of the stories also use grief as a prism to explore the beguiling bonds within families. The stories span a variety of geographies, both urban and rural, often considering collisions between the two.




Heaven was Detroit


Book Description

Heaven Was Detroit is a comprehensive collection of essays on the long history of Detroit music by some of America's best-known music writers.




The Orbit Magazine Anthology


Book Description

With a mischievous globe-headed mascot that appeared in every issue and even on Quentin Tarantino's T-shirt in Pulp Fiction, Orbit was an instantly recognizable arbiter of 1990s Detroit culture. But its irreverent tone and unique editorial features could be traced to two earlier local publications from creator Jerry Peterson, a.k.a. Jerry Vile-White Noise (1978-1980) and Fun: The Magazine for Swinging Intelectuals [sic] (1986-1990). In The Orbit Magazine Anthology: Re-Entry, author Rob St. Mary details the full run of White Noise, Fun, and Orbit, collecting two decades' worth of Detroit's alternative publishing history into an oversized, heavily illustrated volume that situates the publications in the city's pop culture and media history. St. Mary shows that while other alternative papers followed a tried-and-true focus on lefty politics and the arts, Vile's publications found their niche in biting satire and sharp design that fed on popular culture. From the 70s punk scene in White Noise to audacious articles and irreverent "news" in Fun and a blend of reporting, satire, and culture in Orbit, St. Mary shows that Vile's publications were distinctive in their content and uniquely Detroit in their tone. In sections devoted to each magazine, St. Mary details their recurring features (including dining, movie, and music reviews) and interviews former staffers. Numerous images and page spreads reveal the notable Detroit musicians-like Destroy All Monsters, the Gories, ICP, Jack White, Kid Rock, and Derrick May-and artists-including Niagara, Glenn Barr and Tristan Eaton-that graced their pages. A foreword by Jerry Vile and an afterword by Ben Blackwell round out this one-of-a-kind volume. Anyone interested in Detroit arts and culture or the history of alternative publishing will be grateful for The Orbit Magazine Anthology.




Summer on Fire


Book Description

A mix of history and inventive remembrances, Summer on Fire recreates six weeks in the intense summer of 1967. Riots, rock and roll, shootings, marches, and bomb plots shake Detroit, reminding us that today's turmoil is a mirror of that era.