313: Life in the Motor City

Since 2007, John Carlisle has fascinated readers with his untold stories of Detroit in his “Detroitblogger John” column for the Metro Times. His words and photographs shed light on the overlooked and forgotten while bringing life to neglected, far-flung neighborhoods. The Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists named Carlisle the 2011 Journalist of the Year for his work on the city. This collection features dozens of his previously unpublished photographs and forty-two of his most unforgettable stories, including a man who has a strip club in his living room, a bar in a ghost town, a coffee shop for the city’s homeless, an art gallery in a mattress store and an old-fashioned debutante ball in the unlikeliest of places.

A native of Detroit, John Carlisle has written about and photographed the city for the Metro Times for four years under the name Detroitblogger John, a pen name based on his longstanding web project, detroitblog. He has also been a contributor to Hour Detroit magazine and an editor at the C&G Newspapers chain. A graduate of Wayne State University’s journalism program, Carlisle has won numerous awards over the years for his writing and photography and was named Journalist of the Year in 2011 by the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

$ 22.95