Overview

Screw Capital of the World. Forest City. Home of the Rockford Peaches of A League of Their Own fame. Rockford, Illinois, has many identities, most oriented toward the past. These days, the fastener industry has mostly rusted away, the trees are less plentiful than they once were, and professional women's baseball is no more. What defines Rockford today? According to The Rockford Anthology, it's the people. Those who grew up here, who came by choice or by circumstance, or who decided to leave. People who lost someone or found a voice or built community here. In this installment of Belt's City Anthology series, the people of Rockford represent themselves in essays, poetry, and photographs. Here, you'll meet someone who found the space to start a business after leaving the crowd in Chicago. Academy Award-nominee Bing Liu takes you on a personal tour of his childhood houses and the ghosts that lurk there. A local attorney and activist shares how the city pushed back when ICE wanted to bring a detention center to Rockford. And you'll learn why New York Times bestselling author Kimberla Lawson Roby, stand-up comedian Ashley Ray-Harris, and an introverted expat living in Taiwan always say they're from Rockford . . . not Chicago. Whether through stories of growing up or chronicles of fights to make the city better, a sense of Rockford's present--and future--starts to come into focus.

Full Product Details

9781540270122

Table of Contents

Reviews

""A city with ten nicknames isn't simply beloved or hated--It's a place that has survived more than one history, a town demanding its own redescription. The Screw Capital wears a Peaches sweatshirt. The Reaper City plays double Dutch, goes to Spanish mass on the east side. On Saturdays the Fastener Capital eats at Beef-a-Roo. The Rockford Anthology features the range of ache and well-earned glory in a city once voted America's 'most miserable.' Isn't every rusted door a kind of anthology? This book's pages collect the voices of people who stayed when 'success meant leaving, ' and those who, with every sentence, are making their joyous return."" -- Sarah Minor, author of Slim Confessions ""Edited by Rachel León, this book captures the beauty and complexity of an often-misunderstood city through a kaleidoscope of perspectives. Local readers will learn surprising things about the Rockford they thought they knew, while others will receive a nuanced introduction to a distinctive piece of America's heartland. . . . This book gives voice to writers young and old, novice and professional, of various genders, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions. What would it mean for others to have the opportunity to perceive their hometown through new eyes? What would it change?"" -- Sixty Inches from Center ""In The Rockford Anthology, the latest in Belt Publishing's City Anthology series, editor Rachel León has compiled photographs, essays, and poems that offer a vantage point from which a reader can begin to understand how a place, and more specifically an often overlooked midwestern city, can shape, heal, break, and provide for its residents in surprising and lasting ways. As I read, I kept returning to Jane Jacobs's idea that ""cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody."" The pieces within the anthology create a rich and poignant telling of a city that, for many, resembles the city of Jacobs's writings."" -- Sara Verstynen, Chicago Reader

""A city with ten nicknames isn't simply beloved or hated--It's a place that has survived more than one history, a town demanding its own redescription. The Screw Capital wears a Peaches sweatshirt. The Reaper City plays double Dutch, goes to Spanish mass on the east side. On Saturdays the Fastener Capital eats at Beef-a-Roo. The Rockford Anthology features the range of ache and well-earned glory in a city once voted America's 'most miserable.' Isn't every rusted door a kind of anthology? This book's pages collect the voices of people who stayed when 'success meant leaving, ' and those who, with every sentence, are making their joyous return."" -- Sarah Minor, author of Slim Confessions ""Edited by Rachel León, this book captures the beauty and complexity of an often-misunderstood city through a kaleidoscope of perspectives. Local readers will learn surprising things about the Rockford they thought they knew, while others will receive a nuanced introduction to a distinctive piece of America's heartland. . . . This book gives voice to writers young and old, novice and professional, of various genders, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions. What would it mean for others to have the opportunity to perceive their hometown through new eyes? What would it change?"" -- Sixty Inches from Center

""A city with ten nicknames isn't simply beloved or hated--It's a place that has survived more than one history, a town demanding its own redescription. The Screw Capital wears a Peaches sweatshirt. The Reaper City plays double Dutch, goes to Spanish mass on the east side. On Saturdays the Fastener Capital eats at Beef-a-Roo. The Rockford Anthology features the range of ache and well-earned glory in a city once voted America's 'most miserable.' Isn't every rusted door a kind of anthology? This book's pages collect the voices of people who stayed when 'success meant leaving, ' and those who, with every sentence, are making their joyous return."" -- Sarah Minor, author of Slim Confessions

Author Information

Rachel León is a writer, editor, and social worker. She serves as Managing Director for the Chicago Review of Books and Fiction Director for Arcturus. Her work has appeared in Catapult, The Rumpus, BOMB, and elsewhere. She's the author of the novel How We See the Grey (Northwestern University Press, 2026).

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