iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

My friend Doug died this summer. This weekend we celebrated him in Chicago. Last night we went to Cunneen’s, the bar he wrote about in The New Territory. Today there was a funny, tearful celebration of life. I got to see a lot of good people and meet even more. I think we did right by him.

Four Midwesterners in front of Cunneen’s, a bar in Chicago

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

If you’re in the Lansing area, don’t forget to go see Dawn Burns talking about Lingering Inland!

Flyer for Lingering Inland event at MSU Libraries, featuring two book covers

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Passing the polling place, signs sprouting from the roadside, I saw a grandpa wearing an I Can’t Breathe t-shirt walking a kid into school, and so I introduced my daughter to “A Small Needful Fact” in the car line.

Screenshot of the poem “A Small Needful Fact,” by Ross Gay.

A Small Needful Fact

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.i
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

We did it! LINGERING INLAND won a Midwest Book Award! Thanks to contributors Olga Herrera and Liz Wilkinson for accepting on behalf of all our contributors!

Two women standing in front of a Midwest Book Awards banner holding the book Lingering Inland, a certificate, and a very large gold medal plaque

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Otto and the Moaners on a Sunday afternoon

Record on turntable next to the cover of Otto and the Moaners’ album, Deep Country Dream, featuring evergreens at dusk. Sunlight and greenery through the window in the background.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Excited for the Unbound Book Festival in a couple weeks, where I’ll get to share a stage with the authors of these fine books: Leslie VonHolten, George Frazier, and Kieran Walquist!

Three books on a wood tabletop with two chair backs and windows in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Toby left a massive record collection, and while I couldn’t keep everything, I saved two big bins, and I’m going through one-by-one. Today we’ve got a throwback that probably introduced a lot of teenage boys to jazz and world rhythms. Thanks, Tobe.

Record player spinning LP, beside album cover of the Beastie Boys’ The In Sound from Way Out!

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The newest volume of #LiteraryLandscapes is here! It's a timely issue, with an essay on Renee Nicole Good and two from the Twin Cities. 1/2

A series of five portraits with a blue background. The faces are Harvey Pekar (drawn in comic style), Stuart Dybek, Renee Nicole Good, Danez Smith, and Charles Dickens (artistic portrait).

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Aunt Lisa donated a copy of Lingering Inland to my high school library!

High school library bookshelf featuring Lingering Inland alongside several other books by local authors from Hagerstown, Indiana

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Several of Toby’s friends are gathering this weekend to play his music. Seems perfectly fitting, and I’m grateful both that they’re doing it and that I can be there

“Don’t Mind if we doodily do: a night of music celebrating Toby Oler. Orbit Room, January 3” handwritten on a watercolor background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

We've got a brand-new volume of #LiteraryLandscapes for you to peruse, this time on Mark Twain! Even before you click the link below, check out these portraits—they make me wonder if *anyone* at the turn of the 19-20c was photographed more.

Five black-and-white portraits of Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain), ranging in age from his teenage to his later years.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

We had a really wonderful book launch for Lingering Inland last night! Thanks to everyone who came out!

Lingering Inland Andy Oler spelled out in cookies

A row of mostly gray-bearded men signing books

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

My Aunt Tracy sent me a note and look at this brilliant sticker

The back of an envelope with a sticker of Mothman sitting behind a bowl. Above and below it says, “Please leave me alone I am eating soup”

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Look at that beautiful box of books!

Multiple copies of the book Lingering Inland in a cardboard box, photo askew. Book cover is an aerial shot of a single car driving on a rural road, with a blue circle with the title and a white circle with the editor, Andy Oler.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Pretty pleased with this end-of-semester grading set-up

Research poster on masculinity in August Wilson’s Fences next to a laptop set up on a bin that is sitting on a rolling cart. Bookshelves and academic buildings in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

A few other folks shared too, including one guy he talked to in the post office where he worked. After, a few other music friends hung around and played several more songs. The people at the local diner where Dad and Toby would eat got this wood engraving for Mom and Dad.

Wood engraving of a man in sunglasses playing the banjo, with the words “In memory of Toby Oler 06.22.81-11.11.25”

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

I’ve been given the highest honor

Two people standing side by side. A woman dressed in Halloween costume like the man, with light pants, a checked shirt, gray beard, and glasses

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Come visit me and The New Territory at Proof: A Midwest Lit Fest!

Gray-bearded man sitting at a table with New Territory magazine merch, with a basketball hoop and several tables in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Check out these @wittybanterism.bsky.social prints that my brother commissioned of my parents’ old house and barn

Framed prints of psychedelic artwork of barn and farmhouse

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Sitting in a coffee shop, preparing to teach The Green Corn Rebellion for the first time, and I had forgotten that it kicks off with such a banger

Opening paragraphs of The Green Corn Rebellion, ending with “These little dead spells were long enough with him that you noticed them. Everybody has little flickers of death, but with an old person the blank spaces are long and apparent.”

Book cover of The Green Corn Rebellion and a latte in the foreground, with cars, sunshine, and palm trees behind

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Advanced Reader Copy! Look at this beauty

Book cover of Lingering Inland: A Literary Tournof the Midwest, with an advanced reader edition sticker, held by a man’s left hand

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Saw my favorite truck in the wild this morning

Tanker truck passing through intersection. Tank advertises Woody’s Septic Tank Service and is decorated with a rainbow spraying out of a hose.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I’m reading Middlemarch for the first time, and though a youth baseball clinic is pretty great for a morning of reading, and there are both lovely and funny passages, I can’t help but think I could have used some guidance to really appreciate this book

A page of George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch with an out-of-focus minor league ballpark in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Banner day: introducing the children to Wayne’s World

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

It’s a good afternoon, finally getting to settle in with Ashley Howard’s Midwest Unrest

Book cover of Ashley Howard’s Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement, with a shoe and some foliage in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I *wish* I were at a Des Moines brewery instead of in a hotel room drinking chamomile tea and babying my voice, but here's a little preview of tomorrow's #MHA2025 presentation.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

It’s my birthday, and I’ve got a book and a latte and a carrot cake muffin, and on the way to the coffee shop I saw a bunny

Latte in foreground with blurry cars and palm trees behind

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Update: we made it inside

Interior of fish market, packed full of people

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

The line at our local fish market, with complimentary Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary in foreground, with fuzzy line of people

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Well, I made a hash of the fluting, but Elin’s birthday mulberry pie (berries from our tree) is ready to go for tomorrow!

Mulberry pie with reindeer shapes cut out of the top crust

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

We’ve had a department tic-tac-toe game for a while—play when you walk by, set the next piece out—and then today somebody added jenga

Wooden tic tac toe board on a white table next to a game of Jenga, with a student union building in the background

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

My election anxiety must have been obvious today, bc a good colleague gifted me these spice packets

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

Rarely am I inspired to put out candy, but then I came across this perfect container…

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 15/10/2024

I’ve cleaned up as much mud from the street as I can get. Our neighbors (who own a company that makes shutters) gave us a truckload of wood shavings that we used to level the yard. Then I threw the street mud on top of it. Let's hope it all turns to soil...

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 13/10/2024

Water situation, Sunday 10/13, 9am: yay! I can back the car into the driveway and put away the boards. The rest of the day will be spent scraping mud

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 12/10/2024

The water is still too deep for us to drive out, but the tree guys did a great job, and we have minimal damage to the roof. The main guy speculated that the palm tree that snapped off and fell on the power line may have kept the much larger elm from crashing harder into the house. We got very lucky.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 12/10/2024

We heard that you can reuse sandbags, so yesterday we started filling some low spots in the yard and drying the bags

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 12/10/2024

Water situation, Saturday 10/12, 9am. With any luck it will go down a bit with the tide in the next few hours

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Current water situation. Since the fence has become electrified, and we don’t know how, we are hesitant to step into the water—so it needs to recede another couple feet before we can leave the property.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Look at this lovely new waterfront property

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 10/10/2024

Update: long intense night, rain has subsided, still windy but not hurricane force. Lost power about 3am, now on intermittently. Elm tree came down on house, hopefully just leaning. Palm snapped off and landed on power line. Flooding all around but the house stayed dry.

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 09/10/2024

We’re boarded up and the lowest entrances are sealed as well as possible. Glad to be away from landfall, but concerned about flooding. Wish us luck!

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 28/09/2024

My brother sent me a bunch of my Aunt Nancy’s old records, including original pressings of Thriller and Are You Experienced

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

Congratulations to Pete Dulin and Rosemary Hope, whose #LiteraryLandscapes essays were The New Territory's 2024 nominees for Best of the Net! Thanks to Humanities Kansas and High Plains Public Radio for helping bring "Literary Landscapes in Kansas" to life!

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 05/09/2024

We have some people who are legit great at the PTA

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 09/08/2024

The differences between Vance and Walz couldn’t demonstrate this tipping point more clearly

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Andy Oler @andyoler.bsky.social · 09/08/2024

With all the stories and commentary about Walz’s Midwestern masculinity, I’m feeling pretty good about the conclusion to Old-Fashioned Modernism

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