A Lovely Place, a Fighting Place, a Charmer: The Baltimore Anthology

by Gary M Almeter, Rafael Alvarez (Editor)

Overview

A part of Belt’s City Anthology Series, a unique take on Charm City through the eyes of those who live there every day.

To many outsiders, Baltimore—sometimes derisively called “Mobtown” or “Bodymore”—is a city famous for its poverty and violence, twin ills that have been compounded by decades of racial segregation and the loss of manufacturing jobs. But that portrait has only given us a skewed view of a truly unique and diverse American city, the place that produced Babe Ruth, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Edgar Allan Poe, John Waters, and Thurgood Marshall, and a city that’s completely its own. 

In the over thirty-five essays, poems, and short stories collected here, the authors take an unfiltered look at the ins and outs of Baltimore’s past and present. You’ll hear about the first time an umbrella appeared in the Inner Harbor, nineteenth-century grave robbers, and the city’s history with redlining and blockbusting. But you’ll also get a deeper sense of what life is like in Baltimore today, including stories about urban gardening in Bolton Hill, the slow demise of local journalism, what life was like in the city during COVID, and the legacy of Freddie Gray.

As Ron Kipling Williams writes in his essay about the city’s magnetic appeal, “Baltimore has always been a city worth fighting for,” and running through all these essays is the story of Baltimore’s resilience. From Pigtown to Pimlico, this anthology captures the sights, sounds, and feel of this city that so many people have come to discover is truly a lovely place, a fighting place, a charmer.

Edited by Gary M. Almeter and Rafael Alvarez, this anthology offers an unfiltered look at Baltimore that will appeal to anyone looking for a portrait of an American city that’s far more nuanced than the stories that are generally told about it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953368263
Publisher:	Belt Publishing
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Series:	Belt City Anthologies
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gary M. Almeter is a writer and attorney who lives in Baltimore with his wife, three children, and two dogs. He published his first book, a memoir/biography hybrid called The Emperor of Ice-Cream, in 2019. His first novel, Kissing the Roadkill Back to Life, will be published in June 2022, and his humor book, The Official Dream Dinner Party Handbook, is slated for publication in July 2022.

Rafael Alvarez is a writer based in his hometown of Baltimore, the setting for virtually all of his fiction, journalism, and memoir. His biography of a Baltimore badass turned do-gooder—Don't Count Me Out: The Bruce White Story—will be released in 2022 by Cornell UniversityPress. A former staff writer for the HBO drama The Wire, Alvarez learned his craft on the city desk of the Baltimore Sun as a young man. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Table of Contents

Introduction: Reporter / Reverend / Baltimorean

M. Dion Thompson

 

Elijah Cummings: Statesman from the Westside, 1951–2019

John Sarbanes

 

Charm City

Lynne Viti

 

East Federal Street

Ron Cassie

 

In the Moonlight

Ashley Minner

 

Baltimore Weather

David Michael Ettlin

 

Houses of Ice, 1969

Afaa Weaver

 

Herc Remembers Mobtown

Domenick Lombardozzi

 

Tough Letter to Baltimore (2019)

D. Watkins

 

The Dead House

Bruce Goldfarb

 

The Lines between Us

Lawrence Lanahan

 

The Coliseum

Edgar Allan Poe

 

Huck and Tom in a Baltimore That is Gone

Michael Ziegler

 

Estelle Hall Young and the Women’s Suffrage Club

Jean Thompson

 

The Corner of Lombard and Janney

Andrée Rose Catalfamo

 

Quality

Len Shindel

 

The Proclaimers

Gary Almeter

 

Footlong Franks Becomes David Franks, MD

Rosalia Scalia

 

No Return

Kondwani Fidel

 

Herbie

Julia Beavers

 

Woman in a Hospital Gown, Baltimore

Scot Ehrhardt

 

A Garden the Size of a Picnic Blanket

Helen Yuen

 

The Best Bar in the World

Seth Sawyers

 

Brooks vs. Cal

Charlie Vascellaro

 

Blue Horseshoes

Dean Bartoli Smith

 

Ode to Lucille Clifton

Jackie Oldham

 

Fitzgerald and Baltimore

Dan Maloney

 

Pratt Street & I

Fernando Quijano III

 

South Chapel Street

Christopher McNally

 

The Magic Blanket

Ron Kipling Williams

 

Triflin’ Tulkoff

Dean Krimmel

 

Farewell to the Life of Kings

Doug Donovan

 

Growing Up in Baltimore as I Remember

William Dubbins

 

Joe and Mel vs. the Twist

Doug Lambdin

 

Fran’s Bar: A Short Story

Jen Grow

 

Our Lady of Pigtown: A Short Story

Rafael Alvarez

 

Recipes

 

Contributor Bios

Editorial Reviews

"The diverse collection features the saga of 19th-century Baltimore grave robbers and a history of the city morgue by Bruce Goldfarb, an award-winning writer and the executive assistant to the state’s Chief Medical Examiner, and a letter and plea to Baltimoreans from New York Times bestselling author D. Watkins [. . .] A wide-ranging account of what the city feels like today." —Ron Cassie, Baltimore Magazine

"Luckily, Rafael Alvarez and Gary Almeter, co-editors of the anthology A Lovely Place, A Fighting Place, A Charmer: The Baltimore Anthology, let the people of this city define their home through reflections in prose, poetry, recipes, and even a comic strip. The Baltimore Anthology speaks to the heart of the city through thirty-five literary voices and visual artists, including Dundalk-Lumbee native Ashley Minner, renowned poet Afaa Weaver, new writers like William Duppins, and many more." — Jalynn Harris, Baltimore Fishbowl

From the Publisher