Donald Cornelius Belton (1956 – 2009) was an African American author, editor, and teacher. He received a scholarship to attend William Penn Charter School, and while attending Bennington College befriended James Baldwin, who encouraged him to write. He earned a B.A. from Bennington in 1981 and went on to receive an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins College in 1982. Belton worked as a reporter for Newsweek magazine. In 1986 Belton's first novel, Almost Midnight, was published by Beech Tree Books. Almost Midnight has been described as a "magical tale" chronicling the life of a preacher through the recollections of three women. Belton's anthology Speak My Name: Black Men on Masculinity and the American Dream was published by Beacon Press in 1995. In 2005 Belton's essay "Where We Live: A Conversation with Essex Hemphill and Isaac Julien" was anthologized in the Lambda Award-winning volume Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men's Writing, 1979 to the Present. Belton taught creative writing at Temple University, Shippensburg University, the University of Michigan, Macalester College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Indiana University, Bloomington. In the fall of 2009 he began a tenure track position at Indiana University, but was tragically found stabbed to death in his home on December 28, 2009. Ex-Marine Michael Griffin confessed and was convicted of murder in 2011. A website, justicefordonbelton.com was established to commemorate Belton's life and work.
Don Belton
Studios
Star
Don Belton worked in the Star studio.
Funded by Alpha Chi Omega, a national fraternity founded in 1885, Star Studio — built in 1911–1912 — was the first studio given to the residency by an outside organization. To this day, Alpha Chi sorority pledges learn the story of Star Studio and its role in supporting American arts and letters. Beginning as a nicely proportioned…