I’m happy to announce that my essay, Marquette Park: Members Only, is going to be included in an anthology: The Best of the Rust Belt. It’s set for release in the summer of 2024.
Marquette Park: Members Only was originally included in The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook, a quirky and eclectic anthology of Chicago writers (and one guy from New York) pontificating over their neighborhoods. Readers interested in urban writing will be sure to enjoy this new anthology from Belt Publishing.
I’ve penned an essay about the war in Ukraine for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Please check it out here.
I haven’t written much here for a while, primarily because I’m at work on some new writing.
In the meantime, I’ve got a short story in this anthology, titled “Open Heart Chicago: An Anthology of Chicago Writing,” edited by Vincent Francone. The story is titled “The Parabola of a Single Bullet Shot into the Night Sky.” It features the things you’ve come to know an love from yours truly, including death, love and mind-bending stuff.
An Excerpt from The Memoir Prize 2021 Grand Prize Winner: Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen, by Gint Aras. The full Relief by Execution: A …
Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen by Gint Aras
I’m excited to announce that my essay, Marquette Park: Members Only, has been included in an anthology: Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook, available in September of 2019. Fans of urban prose and Chicago history, and those readers interested in questions of race, ethnicity, nation and cultural identity will find this anthology provocative and entertaining.
My essay deals with the racial tensions in Marquette Park in the 80’s and 90’s, and the curious question of why so many residents worried about encroachment from African-Americans but didn’t seem to have any trouble with the Nazi headquarters on 71st Street.
You can pre-order here.
Here is the complete table of contents:
Introduction
Martha Bayne
WEST SIDE
Austin: Austin and Division
Shaina Warfield
Austin: Cakewalk (poem)
Rasaan Khalil
West Humboldt Park: Queen of the Tunnels
Lily Be
Garfield Park: Perspectives (photo essay)
Gabriel X. Michael
North Lawndale: Interview with Alexie Young, MLK Exhibit Center
Amanda Tugade
Little Village
Emmanuel Ramirez, Gloria “Nine” Valle, and Zipporah Auta with Yollocalli Arts Reach
SOUTHWEST SIDE
Garfield Ridge: Comeback Kid
Sheila Elliot
Back of the Yards: Books and Breakfast at the Breathing Room
Miranda Goosby
Englewood: Interview with Tamar Manasseh, Mothers Against Senseless Killings
Kirsten Ginzky
Marquette Park: Members Only
Gint Aras
FAR SOUTHWEST SIDE
Ashburn: That’s Amore
Tim Mazurek
Mount Greenwood: Growing Up In, and Reporting On, Chicago’s Poster Child for Racial Tension
Joe Ward
Beverly: How to Integrate a Chicago Neighborhood in Three (Not-So) Easy Steps
Scott Smith
FAR SOUTHEAST SIDE
Roseland: They Killed Him and His Little Girlfriend
Raymond Berry
Pullman: Pullman and Ideal Communities in Chicago, the Rust Belt, and Beyond
Claire Tighe
Hegewisch: Pudgy’s Pizza
Josh Burbidge
East Side: Something About the South Side
Mare Swallow
SOUTH SIDE
South Shore: Between the Lake and Emmett Till Road
Audrey Petty
Woodlawn: Memories of Obama
Jonathan Foiles
Hyde Park: Quarks and Quiche on the Midway
John Lloyd Clayton
Bronzeville: Black Metropolis
Alex Miller
NEAR WEST SIDE
Bridgeport: The Community of the Future
Ed Marzsewski
Heart of Chicago: Sketches
Dmitry Samarov
Pilsen: The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Changing Barrio (photo essay)
WEST SIDE
Austin: Austin and Division
Shaina Warfield
Austin: Cakewalk (poem)
Rasaan Khalil
West Humboldt Park: Queen of the Tunnels
Lily Be
Garfield Park: Perspectives (photo essay)
Gabriel X. Michael
North Lawndale: Interview with Alexie Young, MLK Exhibit Center
Amanda Tugade
Little Village
Emmanuel Ramirez, Gloria “Nine” Valle, and Zipporah Auta with Yollocalli Arts Reach
SOUTHWEST SIDE
Garfield Ridge: Comeback Kid
Sheila Elliot
Back of the Yards: Books and Breakfast at the Breathing Room
Miranda Goosby
Englewood: Interview with Tamar Manasseh, Mothers Against Senseless Killings
Kirsten Ginzky
Marquette Park: Members Only
Gint Aras
FAR SOUTHWEST SIDE
Ashburn: That’s Amore
Tim Mazurek
Mount Greenwood: Growing Up In, and Reporting On, Chicago’s Poster Child for Racial Tension
Joe Ward
Beverly: How to Integrate a Chicago Neighborhood in Three (Not-So) Easy Steps
Scott Smith
FAR SOUTHEAST SIDE
Roseland: They Killed Him and His Little Girlfriend
Raymond Berry
Pullman: Pullman and Ideal Communities in Chicago, the Rust Belt, and Beyond
Claire Tighe
Hegewisch: Pudgy’s Pizza
Josh Burbidge
East Side: Something About the South Side
Mare Swallow
SOUTH SIDE
South Shore: Between the Lake and Emmett Till Road
Audrey Petty
Woodlawn: Memories of Obama
Jonathan Foiles
Hyde Park: Quarks and Quiche on the Midway
John Lloyd Clayton
Bronzeville: Black Metropolis
Alex Miller
NEAR WEST SIDE
Bridgeport: The Community of the Future
Ed Marzsewski
Heart of Chicago: Sketches
Dmitry Samarov
Pilsen: The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Changing Barrio (photo essay)
Sebastián Hidalgo
Greektown/Maxwell Street/Little Italy: UIC: Chicago’s Past and Future
Ann Logue
River West: Cranes of River West
Jean Iversen
CENTRAL
South Loop: Michigan and Harrison
Megan Stielstra
The Loop: Life in Chicago’s Front Yard
Rachel Cromidas
Gold Coast: The Alleys of the Gold Coast
Leopold Froehlich
NORTH
Lakeview: On Belmont and Clark
Emily Anna Mack
Lakeview: The Blue House
Eleanor Glockner
North Center: Signs in Bloom
Kirsten Lambert
Ravenswood Gardens: Chicago River Life
Rob Miller
FAR NORTH SIDE
Uptown: A Trip to the Argyle Museum of Memories
Vitally Vladimirov
Andersonville: The Precarious Equilibrium
Sarah Steimer
Edgewater Glen: Trick or Treat
Kim Z. Dale
West Ridge: Rebel Girl
Sara Nasser
West Ridge: Paan Stains and Discount Vegetables (photo essay)
Stuti Sharma
Albany Park: Edge Zone Chicago
Benjamin Van Loon
NORTHWEST SIDE
Portage Park: Six Corners, Many Changes
Jackie Mantey
Hermosa: Holy Hermosa (poem)
Sara Salgado
Logan Square: The Best Burger on the Square
Nicholas Ward
Wicker Park: milwaukee avenue (poem)
Kevin Coval
Humboldt Park: Along Pulaski Road, From Irving Park to Humboldt
Alex V. Hernandez
Epilogue: The Last Days of Rezkoville
Ryan Smith
Greektown/Maxwell Street/Little Italy: UIC: Chicago’s Past and Future
Ann Logue
River West: Cranes of River West
Jean Iversen
CENTRAL
South Loop: Michigan and Harrison
Megan Stielstra
The Loop: Life in Chicago’s Front Yard
Rachel Cromidas
Gold Coast: The Alleys of the Gold Coast
Leopold Froehlich
NORTH
Lakeview: On Belmont and Clark
Emily Anna Mack
Lakeview: The Blue House
Eleanor Glockner
North Center: Signs in Bloom
Kirsten Lambert
Ravenswood Gardens: Chicago River Life
Rob Miller
FAR NORTH SIDE
Uptown: A Trip to the Argyle Museum of Memories
Vitally Vladimirov
Andersonville: The Precarious Equilibrium
Sarah Steimer
Edgewater Glen: Trick or Treat
Kim Z. Dale
West Ridge: Rebel Girl
Sara Nasser
West Ridge: Paan Stains and Discount Vegetables (photo essay)
Stuti Sharma
Albany Park: Edge Zone Chicago
Benjamin Van Loon
NORTHWEST SIDE
Portage Park: Six Corners, Many Changes
Jackie Mantey
Hermosa: Holy Hermosa (poem)
Sara Salgado
Logan Square: The Best Burger on the Square
Nicholas Ward
Wicker Park: milwaukee avenue (poem)
Kevin Coval
Humboldt Park: Along Pulaski Road, From Irving Park to Humboldt
Alex V. Hernandez
Epilogue: The Last Days of Rezkoville
Ryan Smith
It’s always an exciting step when your publisher tells you the cover of your book is finished. Here it is.
The release date is October 8th. Pre-order begins on Amazon and Barnes and Noble some time late next week, February 21st. Follow Liquid Ink to keep up with the details, including news about the launch party, scheduled for October.
Here’s what Mikhail Iossel, the founder of the Summer Literary Seminars, and a samizdat writer born in the USSR, had to say after reading it:
This short text packs a powerful punch. A searingly raw exploration of one’s roots, one’s original milieu, one’s upbringing and one’s own conscience. At times difficult to read, it is nonetheless entirely engrossing. Hard to look at yet impossible to look away. A remarkable piece of writing.
From the back cover:
Between the years of 1996-1999, Gint Aras lived a hapless bohemian’s life in Linz, Austria. Decades later, a random conversation with a Polish immigrant in a Chicago coffeehouse provokes a question: why didn’t Aras ever visit Mauthausen, or any of the other holocaust sites close to his former home? The answer compels him to visit the concentration camp in the winter of 2017, bringing with him the baggage of a childhood shaped by his family of Lithuanian WWII refugees. The result is this meditative inquiry, at once lyrical and piercing, on the nature of ethnic identity, the constructs of race and nation, and the lasting consequences of collective trauma.
Liquid Ink 
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