Overview

In Currents in the Electric City, an installment in Belt's City Anthologies series, the story of Scranton gets told by the people who know it best. Scranton, PA, is more than just the setting for The Office. It's the hub of Northeastern Pennsylvania with a rich industrial and labor history. It's also a small town in many ways: Are you really from Scranton if your family doesn't go back several generations (as Maria Johnson asks)? Neighborhood talk can reveal your family secrets before you even know them yourself, as Barbara J. Taylor writes. The essays and poems in this collection show the city as it is today, a Rust Belt city that often serves as a punchline for being stuck in the past but one that is very much alive, with stories to tell. Learn about a Gujarati family's experience, the small but hearty LGBTQ community, the beauty of the Lackawanna River Valley, and the foreign plants along the roadside that mirror the people who emigrated to the region alongside memories from the past: playing on culm banks, the multigenerational family who thrived in a now-dilapidated home, and even voices from the people buried in Dunmore Cemetery. Through it all runs the juxtaposed desire to leave and pull to stay, or return. Though many have heard of Scranton--through television, as President Joe Biden's birthplace, or as a so-called relic of the past--nobody knows it like the people who call it home.

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9781953368775

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A Scranton native, Brian Fanelli spent his teenage years going to local punk rock clubs, including Caf� Del Soul, Caf� Metropolis, and others. He eventually moved to the Philly area and then bounced back to NEPA, where he currently resides with his wife, Daryl, and their cat, Giselle. His latest book is Waiting for the Dead to Speak (NYQ Books), and his writing has been published in the LA Times, World Literature Today, Paterson Literary Review, Pedestal, and elsewhere. Brian also loves horror movies and is a contributing writer to HorroBuzz.com, Signal Horizon Magazine, and 1428 Elm. He has an MFA from Wilkes University and a PhD from SUNY Binghamton University. Currently, Brian is an associate professor of English at Lackawanna College. Joe Kraus is a professor at the University of Scranton in the Department of English & Theatre where he teaches American literature and creative writing. He is the author of The Kosher Capones (Northern Illinois UP, 2019), and his creative work has appeared in The American Scholar, Riverteeth, Under the Sun, and The Baltimore Review, among other places. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, has been long listed for Best American Essays, and won the 2007 Moment /Karma Foundation International Short Fiction Contest.

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