Clara Totten

CITY & CAST Pittsburgh Should Pittsburgh & Cleveland Be Friends? by City Cast Pittsburgh Orange background, skyline with bridges

What can Cleveland and Pittsburgh learn from each other? What would the two cities gain by teaming up as Cleveburgh?

In a new podcast, @chrisbriem.bsky.social—author of our forthcoming book “Beyond Steel”—considers the relationship between two iconic Rust Belt cities:

megaphone.link/CC6470937745

Behind the White House Curtain featured in the Kent State University Press Fall/Winter 2025 catalog.

NEW CATALOG! 困 THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS FALL/WINTER 2025 CATALOG kentstateuniversitypress.com 玉 THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS With flames from industrial site on catalog cover.

Our fall catalog is here! Join us to:
📕anticipate new books (including titles by @chrisbriem.bsky.social and @terryallenbelew.bsky.social);
📕look back on 60 years of KSUP history; and
📕celebrate recent successes by @newsguy.bsky.social and others.
www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/wp-content/u...

"A modern folk tale filled with love, laughter and the joy of life. Reading these merry pages is something like eating a dinner of the very best spaghetti and meat sauce with plenty of Chianti and a string orchestra nearby playing 'Santa Lucia." —The New York Times THE COMING OF FABRIZZE A NOVEL RAYMOND DeCAPITE Foreword by Tony Ardizzone The 81 Essential Cleveland Novels These stories may be fiction, but they are all set in a real place: Northeast Ohio. Read novels from the 1800s to 2025 that use our home as their home. Edited by Annie Nickoloff

At Cleveland Magazine, @nickoloffoff.bsky.social has a new list of “81 Essential Cleveland Novels”—including one from KSUP! “The Coming of Fabrizze,” by Raymond DeCapite, was originally published in 1960 and tells the story of an Italian immigrant in the 1920s: clevelandmagazine.com/entertainmen...

Urgent Message from CUNY, Berkeley, and Georgetown Jewish Faculty On July 15, 2025, City University of New York Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Robert M. Groves, Interim President of Georgetown University, and Rich Lyons, Chancellor of the University of Cali…

New on Academe Blog: academeblog.org/2025/07/15/u...

I just backed this! It's a brilliant new project highlighting voices and stories of Southern Appalachia with wide-ranging art styles from acclaimed comics creators.

A Q&A with Terry Belew, author of “The Deep Blue of Neptune” Big thanks to Cheryl Dyer for talking with Terry Belew, author of The Deep Blue of Neptune—selected as winner of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize. It’s coming in September from Kent State U…

Pleased to share a new Q&A with @terryallenbelew.bsky.social, author of “The Deep Blue of Neptune”—selected as winner of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize.

Also: Most readers skip them. Even if you think you’re giving voice to your subjects, readers are less likely to take away meaning from an unparsed block quote than from interpretive text. It’s your job, as (nonfiction) author, to explain the interpretation to the reader.

Mychal Threets: TIME100 Creators 2025 Find out why Mychal Threets is on the list

Congrats to @mychal3ts.bsky.social for making the inaugural #TIME100Creators list!
Influence comes in many forms, but Mychal’s is the kind that lifts people up. He’s a force for good in the world, spreading kindness, curiosity, and library joy.
📚💙
time.com/collections/...

A rectangular space in a parking lot outlined by pink granite and short pillars. It outlines the spot where Jeffrey Miller was shot by National Guardsmen on the Kent State University campus on May 4, 1970.

A triangular marker made of pink granite that says. “May 4, 1970 Jeffrey Miller.” There are a couple small, handmade lanterns in the foreground and, near the middle of the picture, a small, pink Himalayan salt chunk.

My campus walk today took me to the parking lot at Kent State where students were gunned down on May 4, 1970. Always a visceral reminder of how threatened some feel by the expression of constitutional rights—and how critical it is that we honor these students’ legacies.

Deadbeats, Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves being held against a summery background.

Happy pub day to Martin Bush, whose book “Deadbeats, Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves” is now available!

www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2024/deadbea...

Great conversation with two baseball historians whose combined age is 186!!

Happy #TermTuesday! Today we're talking about page proofs, which is where a book really starts to take shape.

For more information on what changes can be made at this stage, check out this article from @aupresses.bsky.social!
(ask.up.hcommons.org/changes-made...)

Advice | How to Promote Your Scholarly Book An acquisitions editor offers eight tips for marketing-shy academics.

And we're back! My latest in the Chronicle is now live: "How to Promote Your Scholarly Book," ft Libra-coded advice such as "use social media" & "or don't use social media." No doubt other publishers will have lots of tidbits to add. Pls share/reach out for a PDF. www.chronicle.com/article/how-...

I love every single one of these books.

(Also, see those little Christmas cactus leaves in the upper left corner of three of the pics? Pretty proud of myself for remembering to water that plant week after week. It is *thriving,* friends.)

every week, we get folks in the bookstore—active and savvy readers—who are surprised and dismayed to learn that Amazon owns Goodreads and AbeBooks and who have never heard of the alternatives

In a poetic coincidence today, I now have a book cover. Not available yet, but you can pre-order, and I promised my editor everyone following here will want to preorder! But if you have landed here because of the Nippon Steel/US Steel news, you will want to read this:

University presses to follow Join the conversation

Find & follow your favorite university presses on this platform with this handy starter pack of our members: go.bsky.app/7p95p7B

And if you're looking for university presses that publish in a certain field, consult our Subject Area Grid: https://bit.ly/3C7ASUc.

#ReadUP

"i asked grok" "i asked chagpt" yeah well I asked a rare books librarian and they found things I didn’t even know I was looking for, while answering questions about provenance

We should make June 14th No Kings Day permanently.

the story today is of a profoundly low energy military parade being met with millions of americans in nationwide protests denouncing the dictatorial pretensions of the president

Getting fired won’t stop Carla Hayden In her first local interview since she was fired by President Trump as Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden speaks about the importance of expanding access, not cutting it off.

Dr. Carla Hayden may have been fired, but she’s not backing down. In her first local interview since being removed as Librarian of Congress, Hayden reflects on her career, community, and the growing threats facing libraries.
bit.ly/45soIBH

Key excerpt from Judge Breyer's ruling in Newsom v Trump:

"..the Court must determine whether the President followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions. He did not. His actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment."

In the past week, a union leader has been arrested, a U.S. Rep charged with a crime, a U.S. Senator violently handcuffed, and reporters shot with rubber bullets and detained. There is no ambiguity. This is a regime operating as an authoritarian. Americans who believe in liberty must oppose it.

So many great points here, especially this one:

Trust that you’ve done the work.

As I tell authors making final revisions, your manuscript wouldn't have made it through internal evaluation, peer review, and the Editorial Board if it weren't strong already.

Bragg Soldiers Who Cheered Trump's Political Attacks While in Uniform Were Checked for Allegiance, Appearance As Trump viciously attacked his perceived political foes, he whipped up boos from the gathered troops directed at California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Really important story - army officials asked soldiers to identify themselves if they don't agree with Trump's politics that way he'd get only supportive soldiers in uniform during his political rally on base. Heavier soldiers were also barred from participating.

Sigh, my guess is that nothing is obvious and everything can get murky. E.g., what abt the reviewer who reads the ms first, feeds it into AI, and then checks the generated report to confirm whether they agree with it and edit as needed? (Reviewers: still, pls don't do this.)

Please for the love of everything do not do this

(makes me wonder if we should add this into our peer reviewer agreement though....)

ChatGPT is down but The Museum of English Rural Life still stands, proving once again that Silicon Valley cannot compete with the history of rural England and its people.

SUNDAY BASEBALL NOTES The Boston Globe DEADBEATS, DEAD BALLS, AND THE 1914! BOSTON BRAVES MARTIN H. BUSH "Some locally oriented book ideas for a Father's Day gift: 'Deadbeats, Dead Balls and the 1914 Boston Braves' by Martin H. Bush and 'Cape Dreams: A Season with the Brewster Whitecaps' by Mark 'Pathfinder'

Thrilled to see the Boston Globe recommend “Deadbeats, Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves” as a Father’s Day gift. Congrats to author Martin Bush!

If you have access to the Globe, you can read the full piece here: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/07/s...