On 11 May the Burchfield Penney Art Center welcomes Bruce Fisher, author of Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust: Essays From America’s Broken Heartland, for an author event as part of that month’s M&T Bank Second Fridays programming. Copies of the new essay collection will be on sale, and Fisher will be on hand to sign books and talk with readers. In addition, the gallery will be displaying 11 works from their collection, some of which are illustrated in the book.
Then, on 16 May, Talking Leaves Books will host Fisher for “Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust: Buffalo's Renaissance Reexamined,” a critical evaluation of the premises of Buffalo’s alleged “renaissance.” Fisher’s talk will touch on several chapters from his book. The event will conclude with a Q&A. Copies will be available for sale and signing.
The Public Books -- the publishing partnership of Foundlings Press and The Public -- released volume one of Fisher’s latest collection on 6 April at the new Community Beer Works Brewery at 520 Seventh St.
About the Author
Bruce Fisher is a provocative, literate essayist with a resume in national politics and policy who has made the American Great Lakes region — the Rust Belt — his focus as a researcher, activist, and writer. He has served as an advisor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, a member of president-elect Barack Obama’s Urban Policy Advisory Committee, and a speechwriter for Vice President Joe Biden. He currently teaches at SUNY Buffalo State College. He has been a journalist and essayist for publications in in D.C., Chicago, and Buffalo; has made frequent media appearances on Huffington Post TV, National Public Radio, and local network affiliates; and writes on a near-weekly basis for The Public. His most recent book was Borderlands: Essays from the U.S.-Canadian Divide (SUNY Press, 2012)
About the Book
In these essays about Rust Belt communities, Fisher carefully but vigorously challenges. He tackles real-estate developers; knocks liberals who won’t embrace metro government; excoriates conservatives for their racist code-words; nudges us to revisit the debate between Heidegger and Cassirer; and explains the brilliance of streetcars and urban wildlife, the persistence of black male workforce exclusion, the centrality of water quality, and many other issues that shape cities. Fisher takes deep dives into data, scholarship, and history — as he does nearly weekly for The Public, Western New York’s leading independent weekly newspaper.
Fisher’s essay “Flat at dawn and twilight,” about the practice of sculling on the Niagara, won the 2007 Dzanc Books Best of the Web award, and gives us a glimpse of what to expect in Volume 2 of this two-volume collection — essays that explore more about the religious, cultural, and symbolic dimensions of communities struggling to define themselves in time and space. Fisher’s scope is broad, he wears his erudition lightly, and his work is ever about crossing boundaries — in celebration of what’s to be found across the line.
Praise for Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust
The financial decline of the middle class is the issue of our time. Bruce Fisher’s Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust is a must read for anyone seriously trying to understand why it happened and how to fix it.
— Ted Kaufman, former United States Senator and advisor to Vice President Joe Biden
To understand Rust Belt politics, you can't do better than to read Bruce Fisher's excellent essay collection. A multi-generational son of Buffalo, Fisher brings erudition, wit, and heart to these studies, with a deep understanding of regional history, cultural geography, and public policy. Forget the Big Foot journalists suddenly traveling around interviewing random locals at the diner in the Age of Trump. Local journalist Bruce Fisher tells you everything you need to know, through the prism of Buffalo, about culture and politics in flyover country.
— Catherine Tumber, author of Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World (MIT Press, 2012), Penn Institute of Urban Research Scholar, MassINC Gateway Cities Fellow, and UMass Donahue Institute Research Manager
About The Public Books
The Public Books, an imprint of Foundlings Press, is the book publishing arm of The Public newspaper.
The Public launched in 2014 to present the smartest thinking on the whole spectrum of Western New York culture, from politics to film, from books to visual arts, from music to food and drink and more.
Foundlings Press is an independent publishing partnership based in Buffalo, NY, and produces a highly selective list of poetry and nonfiction full-length titles, chapbooks, coffee table books, and uncategorizable texts. Since its beginnings as a biannual print poetry magazine in 2015 through its evolution into a literary press, Foundlings has sought to publish the best writing and to promote the best writers — to publish work that throws off heat to warm the living today and light to guide the readers of tomorrow.
www.foundlingspress.com
www.dailypublic.com