News & Notes

oh look Belt has a part-time job posted

Hello to a sunny Monday morning here in constantly-barraged-by-political-ads Pittsburgh. Here are this month’s news and notes:

BELT

• Belt is hiring! Now the dust is settling on our integration with Arcadia—the backlist files resettled, the royalty history uploaded, a new production team forming—it’s time for us to improve some areas that have been left unattended in publicity and marketing. Maybe you or someone you know might be good for this part time job?

• The newest title added to our published catalog launched with a fabulous reading and signing at Cleveland’s Mac’s Backs this weekend; congrats to Jon Wlasiuk who wrote one of the best books about Cleveland to date.
  

• Belt’s spring catalog, which includes rhubarb, maps of the Great Lakes, and a Las Vegas mystery written by a Sociology professor, has been added to our pre-order page (galleys available).

  

  
  

PUBLISHING

• Dan Sinykin on bookstores

• I love the citations and detail on this library catalog of a famous meme.

• Speaking of figuring out citations and leaving a bibliographic trail, Derek Krisoff asks what we think of putting notes in a website instead of the back of the book, as was done with Ta-Nahisi Coates (I am a fan, but link rot is a thing, pace last week’s post, and that’s worrisome).

• Did you know that Skyhorse, publisher of many a right wing title, has a lively imprint of literary fiction?

• I’ve been enjoying reading

  Celine Nguyen
  ’s newsletter; this one even includes a walkthrough of her pitch to the LARB; hell yes: transparency.

• Similarly enjoying Naomi Kanakia’s sharp insights on criticism, publishing, and writing.

• Alexander Manshel on historical fiction.

• I love St. Louis bookseller James Crossley’s Leviathan Newsletter.

• What the New Critics have to do with the J. D. Vance and the New Right

• Phil Klay makes clear, forceful arguments about our dark and bloody crossroads, as in this piece on artists and activism.

ALSO

• When my absolute favorite place in the entire world (RIP, sold in 2001, the names forever enshrined) is the subject of an essay by one of my absolute favorite writers ever, I swoon.¹
  

• I’m a fan of Sam Sacks, whose taste seems similar to mine, so I was excited to discover, through him, Quarterlife ("by a distance the best debut of the year"). I’m about a quarter through (ha), and I like it, but I’m not sure yet if it’s an auspicious debut that has the understandable debut problems of overambition and overwriting, or if it’s as good as Sacks argues. Either way, it has that something that resists, an all-important literary virtue, and I am energized by reading it and grateful to have found it.
  

• I haven’t read Intermezzo yet but I will; pro-Rooney over here (and I’m skipping all the discourse this time around). In other-authors-I’ve-liked-before news, I read the new Kate Atkinson/Jackson Brodie which was…not great, and The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz which, same. Guess that’s what I get for being sucked into the recently touted. Best to sniff out those few individuals who seem share your taste and follow their lead.
  

My book proposal course is full (!). I’ll run it again in January if enough people express interest. If that might be you, send me an email with better/worse dates in January.

1. This week I will be traveling to Pittsfield, Massachusetts for the memorial of my beloved uncle, George Wislocki (other enshrined name), who was the definition of avuncular, so much so that I did a double-take when I first learned the definitions of the word. He is missed, his memory a blessing.