Michelle Chen

Oh do report back! I love to be corrected on grammar 🤓

I feel like this is one of those things where it's technically grammatically correct, but so ugly it should be avoided at all costs. Like possessives of names that end in "s" **shudder**

I...don't like it.

My problem with Banned Books Week The unbought book vs. the challenged one

I feel the same! @derekkrissoff.bsky.social wrote a great post about this (sorry Derek, to put you on blast again; apparently I'm your biggest fan this week) derekkrissoff.substack.com/p/my-problem...

FYI happening this Thursday—free and open to all. Just click the link to register. Featuring @dwcongdon.com, @dawnd.bsky.social, and Alyssa Napier talking all things diss to book—what’s the diff b/w them, how to find a press/approach an editor, tips for proposal writing. Join us & spread the word!

Today we've got BLACK OR RIGHT which explores ideas of Blackness in white institutional spaces. It's theory; it's rhetoric studies; it's autoethnography. It's got it all. Including some truly haunting personal accounts of what it practically means to be a Black man on campus.

Ever since @derekkrissoff.bsky.social's blog about #BannedBooks week, I've been thinking about the need to highlight books that are not technically banned, especially now now when bans are less explicit, but exist all the same. So I'll have recs every day this week (bc reading widely is resistance!)

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to those who celebrate! 🥮 🌕

Also, I was today year's old when I found out that China's lunar exploration program is named after the moon goddess Chang'e, about whom there is a surprising dearth of academic material. Who wants to pitch me a book on Chinese folklore?

Comments on endnotes/footnotes omg YES

The real ones get it

Me: it’s time to purge some books from the bookshelves

Also me: ok but obviously I NEED to keep this high school Latin primer

Spoiler alert: books remain unpurged

Oh good point! I didn't even notice that. I was just happy to see that both Katie Kitamura and Susan Choi made the list 🤗

Oh thank you! According to my brother, the use of it also requires some kind of military grade maps, which seems above my limited wildlife capabilities 😂

Silly little me thinking that compasses are all the same and just point north 🤷‍♀️

Example of why I would not survive a day in the apocalypse: I had to buy a compass so I purchased one at random and my (outdoorsy) brother looked at it and went "do you even know how to use a lensatic compass?" to which I replied "what is a lensatic compass?" so yeah I'll be returning that I guess

Loved that book! You should read The Glass Hotel as well--I super enjoyed it.

This is a promotional graphic for the University Press of Florida’s Fall 2025 Publishing Symposium. It features the three sessions that make up the symposium, “Understanding Editors,” “Careers in Publishing,” and “Publishing Career Meetup,” as well as their respective start and end times in multicolored bands against an azure background. University Press of Florida and UF Press logos appear in white in the bottom right corner, while white text in the left corner reads, “Fall 2025 Publishing Symposium.”

Don’t forget to register for our Fall 2025 Publishing Symposium!

Please join us for this free virtual event on October 23rd, starting at 1pm EST. It is open to anyone who would like to learn more about book publishing. Register here: upress.ufl.edu

So many words I wanted to spell today if only I had an E

Yes! Cleaning up manuscripts in general is oddly soothing (unless the original formatting is true, unrelenting chaos)

Me: It's a heads-down day. I'm locking into a project and not looking at email, Slack, or Bluesky.

Also me: but before I do that let me just check email, Slack, and Bluesky real quick.

Me, 2 hours later, deep into my 20th email and posting on Bluesky: OK yeah I see what happened here.

My beige flag is that I find mundane data entry somewhat soothing? BRB I'm off to disappear into a gigantic spreadsheet 🤓

"I asked Chat GPT"

Well we asked an expert and then we asked other experts in that field to review the first expert's work.

This is the definition of white nonsense

Great post!

"In general, I do not edit reviewers’ reports before I send them to authors."

I mostly completely agree, but in extreme cases I may delete sentences or change reviewers' language, especially if it feels targeted or truly offensive. Reviews should be constructive--never just an attack

It should be in author contracts! There's usually a clause about split of money from damages resulting in litigation, and the industry standard for UP/Trade publishers tends to be 50/50

Annndddd the Anthropic searchable works list of titles eligible for the settlement just dropped 👀

secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

Worth repeating, and appreciating every day: "More than 100 of North America’s top universities clearly believe that an energetic, outward-facing publishing program is a tremendous asset to, indeed a responsibility of, any university."

My favorite part of Katabasis thus far is how completely believable it is that two PhD candidates would follow their advisor into *literal hell* for a recommendation letter. Academics: are ya’ll ok?

Workshop: How to Connect with Scholarly Publishers Acquiring editors want to meet authors and hear about their book projects. But how and when should you reach out and what should you say? This free workshop from Laura Portwood-Stacer of Manuscript Wo...

I’m giving a free workshop *today* on how to connect with editors at scholarly publishers. Let’s take some anxiety out of this first step so you don’t let fear or confusion about norms keep you from moving forward with publishing your book

courses.manuscriptworks.com/courses/conn...

Oh that's not too bad! As a sometimes snarky side-chatter, I immediately envisioned the worst. It's a dangerous game we play.