The Hazlett Histories is coming! Are Coming? Whatever.

The title is a joke because I know the proper way to say what I was trying to say, which is this: my newsletter is coming! I mean, my other newsletter. It is noteworthy for a number of reasons. I have a proper Foremania newsletter coming out later today, but this is a tiny one meant to tell you about the Hazlett Histories.

Here are some questions I bet would be asked frequently, if I had a lot of people asking me questions.

Why is it called The Hazlett Histories?

I address this in the first issue, so you’ll have to subscribe to find out.

How do I subscribe?

Easy! You follow this link: https://hazlettforeman.substack.com/

Why didn’t you just automatically subscribe everybody who subscribes to this one?

I thought about it! Substack (the platform of the other newsletter) supports the function. But I don’t like it when somebody decides for me what should be in my inbox. If I were simply moving my newsletter to a new place, I would have. But the Hazlett Histories is a rather different product from this one. It’s about Pittsburgh and the surrounding area, with the occasional diversion into other places (Chernobyl makes an appearance in one, for instance). It’s still about me, but much less so. I have entire newsletters already written for the Hazlett Histories that have nothing to do with me. Imagine that!

I also want the Hazlett Histories to stand on its own. It’s a separate thing from the Collected Foremania or the one that I did before I pivoted, or pretty much anything else I’ve done. It’s a project that uses a completely different part of my brain than anything else I do, so I want it to live in a comfortable little place all to itself. I also see the Histories as a way of communicating to a larger audience than this newsletter, which is decidedly about Me.

Wait, what is this new newsletter about?

Here’s what I wrote:

THE HAZLETT HISTORIES are a series of deep dives into the history of the Pittsburgh area, with particular attention to the things most of us don’t hear about. It’s also a personal journey, as some of these topics make me examine my own place in the fabric of the Ohio Valley. This is history told from the corners.

I hope you’ll subscribe and maybe you will even tell people who don’t necessarily know me but might be interested? That’s a lot to ask because you haven’t read it yet but here’s a sample from the first issue:

If you’re a Pittsburgher, you’ve probably heard the name Hazlett before. There’s a street with that name, and a theater, and an exit from the highway. This exit leads to Hazlett street, which does not lead to the New Hazlett Theater (but it does lead to Vic Novak’s Choice Meats, which has no website, Facebook page or anything else for me to link to, which tells me more about Vic Novak’s Choice Meats than a website could).

See? I think I it’s going to be great. Tell your friends!

love,
Jim