iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

One week, two Charlestons (SC and WV), two indie bookstores, and lots of ongoing support—almost six years after the pub date—for the big success story from the little university press.

Secret Lives of Church Ladies being pulled from a bookstore shelf.

Secret Lives of Church Ladies face out in a bookstore display.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Stick at this work long enough and you'll see titles you acquired show up on lists for Book of the Day, Books of the Year, and hell, maybe Books of the Century. Congrats to Deesha Philyaw, whose "Secret Lives of Church Ladies" makes the Kirkus 21st Century list: www.kirkusreviews.com/fiction/best...

Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, book cover with woman in bowtie.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Happy to see that the University of Oklahoma Press, where I serve as editor-at-large for higher education, has joined Bluesky as @oupress.bsky.social. Follow them for the latest from our series, plus much more.

Five book covers from the Teaching and Learning in Higher Ed series.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Eighteen months after the start of the new higher ed series at Oklahoma, a reason to celebrate: at @insidehighered.com, @biblioracle.bsky.social writes about @liznorell.bsky.social's book, as well as series titles by @cjdenial.bsky.social and Michelle Miller. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blog...

If you have been teaching this past semester, you are probably exhausted right now and want a breather, maybe to not even think about things for some period of time. After that breather, I suggest picking up one or all of these books as a way to help infuse fresh oxygen into your work.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Pleased to be helping Kent State with Deborah Fleming’s followup to “Resurrection of the Wild,” winner of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award (judged by Jelani Cobb, Daniel Menaker, Judith Thurman). Hit me up for a review copy of her “Ghosts of an Old Forest: Essays on Midwestern Rural Heritage."

$Announcing the highly anticipated follow-up to Resurrection of the Wild, winner of the 2020 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay Ghosts of an Old Forest Essays on Midwestern Rural Heritage Deborah Fleming April 2025 232 pages 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Hardback $24.95 ISBN 978-1-60635-493-3 Contact: Derek Krissoff, Kent State University Press, dkrissoff_gst@kent.edu In the Ohio counties of the Allegheny Plateau, 19th-century barns hewn from old-growth wood rest near remnant forests, reminders of the state’s deep agricultural roots and rich ecological past. Through fourteen linked, meditative essays, Deborah Fleming, author of the award-winning Resurrection of the Wild: Meditations on Ohio’s Natural Landscape, persuasively and passionately argues for protecting these vestiges of the region’s natural and rural history. Fleming describes domesticated and wild nature on her farm, delves into Ohio’s rich history of agriculture, tackles the issues of litter and pollution, decries the practice of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), and reflects on changes in communities bordering rivers, which are often the most exploited by extraction industries. The result is an evocative collection, which traces Ohio’s natural and cultural history―and serves as an urgent call to preserve its splendor. Praise for Resurrection of the Wild From the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay judges’ citation (Jelani Cobb, Daniel Menaker, Judith Thurman) “In a field of writers eloquent about the pathologies of selfhood and modern life, Deborah Fleming’s Resurrection of the Wild stood apart. It is a collection of essays about the nature and natural history of her native Ohio: on its indigenous inhabitants and their fate; on the settlers who displaced them, or who, like John Chapman—’Johnny Appleseed’—tried to protect their way of life$

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

New in Pittsburgh's avalanche of indie bookstores: Stay Gold Books in Regent Square, with a solid regional selection and comfortable seating.

Pittsburgh penant and selection of regional books.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 17/07/2024

With vice presidential candidate JD Vance calling professors "the enemy," you might assume higher ed has an adversarial relationship to him. But leaders like the one pictured here, who are intent on dismantling the public institutions they oversee, were instrumental in his rise.

Photo of Gee and Vance with text: I finally had a chance to shake JD Vance's hand, which I missed when he graduated from Ohio State. We had a great campus lecture on his book, Hillbilly Elegy.

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Derek Krissoff @derekkrissoff.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

A short essay about short books, publishing expertise, and an especially attractive set of dimensions: 4.72 x 7.48 inches: derekkrissoff.substack.com/p/472-x-748-...

A green background with a hand and two yellow copies of The Book of the Dead.

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