https://www.slagglasscity.org/submit/ Slag is the waste product of iron ore processing and a marker of the remains of the American steel industry. Slag glass is opaque and decorative, the streaks of color said to be the result of adding slag to molten glass. The origins of slag glass as a decorative arts material are murky and speculative but the end product is substantive, beautiful, and utilitarian, making slag glass the perfect image of nonfiction art that comes from and speaks to the post-industrial city. Slag is also a pejorative for the sexually unbound woman; glass is an unavoidable component of the big city skyline view; cities are where people live together—densely, cooperatively, tensely, tragically, and hopefully. What is a slag class city? A melding of the old and the new, of the ugly and the beautiful, of the accident and the plan, of the place and the body, of the rust and the water, of the glass and the green, of the textual and the visual, of the rooftop and the prairie, of the broken and the restored. We seek work that interrogates and celebrates urbanity in all its myriad forms, asking the question: what does and does not make the city livable? Slag Glass City is currently under development with support from the English Department and MA in Writing and Publishing Program at DePaul University in Chicago IL. Current students at DePaul may not submit.
