Our writers have diverse roots. For instance, one such industrial community, East Chicago, Indiana (host to Arcelor-Mittal\’s current flagship and largest US full process steel mill) was listed on censuses in the 1940s and 1960s as having 82 nationalities. As times have changed people have moved to suburbs surrounding but our diverse roots remain. Our schools were integrated. We need to celebrate our stories to bring us together. Our writers\’ families write or have written in English and other languages, such as Spanish, Polish, Greek, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian and others. This collection is in English. No one knew what our true strengths were outside of our steel mill towns. We were modeling intercultural co-existence.
We are fortunate to have reporters like Joseph Pete at the Northwest (Indiana) Times who recently interviewed me about our short story project Children of Steel. I hope that this story will add interest and participation. Our mission is to provide a window on the lives of those who grew up in steel mill towns that goes beyond miscommunication and stereotypes. Other regions such as the south in the US have suffered from this kind of problem. Having fiction helped to change stereotypical views of the south. We hope to create stories that will be suitable to be included in First Year College composition literary readers as well as other venues.
Sincerely,
Gloria McMillan
Lecturer
Dept. of English
University of Arizona
