iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Currently advocating for the emergence of worker- and author- owned publishing collectives. No corporations, no private equity.

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David Naimon @davidnaimon.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Very excited to share today's conversation with Lisa Robertson. We look back across her writing life—in poetry, fiction & nonfiction—using her latest novel RIVERWORK as the frame & portal for it all. Audio🔉🔥: milkweed.org/between-the-... @coachhousebooks.bsky.social

milkweed.org

Lisa Robertson : Riverwork | Milkweed Editions

Lisa Robertson’s Riverwork twins the mysterious disappearance of the great aunt of our protagonist, Lucy Frost, and that same aunt’s interest in a long-disappeared river, buried under the streets of P...

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Look at me, being a know-it-all. Good lord, knock it off, me.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

"Depressing" is a lazy word, though. What really angers me is the rhetoric of inevitability. Which I am guilty of above. But it's become knee-jerk and acceptable to mock the "naivete" of AI skepticism. This is the rhetorical shell game of oligarchy and power.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

B & N carrying AI books seemed inevitable. Publishers with profit-driven owners, especially private equity will undoubtedly be next, or are already there. But Olga? That's depressing.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Re the state of publishing, reviews, and so on. How about fewer complaints and more solutions? We all know there are problems, so what are we / you going to do about it?

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Well, I certainly regret letting myself to be dissuaded from publishing Gwendoline Riley years ago.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Don't think about books as objects or as units, or as products or by-products or results. Start by thinking about creation as performance and reading as experience.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I am really surprised, and worry it's a signal of tightening the reins on risk. I guess maybe I shouldn't be surprised given industry trends toward sure things.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I absolutely did not see Sean McDonald getting let go coming.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Btw if you’re angry and want to let off steam, I recommend writing and sending an angry letter to Target corp.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

If I had my druthers, every arts org would have a vip position where someone acts as a AI skeptic whenever it comes up.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

As corporate publishing embraces AI …

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

How about just let people enjoy Geese if they want to. Why crap on something someone else enjoys?

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

He wanted to start a press that ran counter to that, and I think he did. During my time there, I tried to live up to that.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Coffee House Press’s founder, Allan Kornblum, before he died, was writing a book about how, contrary to popular belief, and with only a few exceptions, the publishing industry is almost always aligned with power and capital.

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Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl @deardara.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

This is really getting on my nerves. THERE WAS NO PROTEST. Pretti was hanging out on a street corner watching over the neighborhood, where muggers could come pick him off or go after the women he was with. Then ICE showed up and things went nuts. There was no protest. Just none.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Efficiency is the enemy of art.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thinking that to me, literature is much more akin to prayer than it is to the NYT best-seller list.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

People who make fun of "lit bros" are really only talking about like 25 people. Also, you're making fun of anyone who decides to read literary fiction? Of whatever gender?

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

This is a great post. I like to think that I ticked all these boxes during my time at Coffee House Press: substack.com/@blakebutler...

substack.com

What I Want In an Ideal Publisher

What traits make a book publisher an ally of the artist rather than a corporate warden holding you back?

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I mean, that just seems like part of it, though.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I think Litnet also had a big part in saving those grants, right?

Adding this: When are we going to reckon with the destruction and criminal exploitation that American's richest families have wrought?

Purdue Pharma — the Guggenheims have already stealthily and handily accomplished.' Has Fraser met a sacred cow she wouldn’t skewer? —From the LATimes. I've never seen publishing get dragged into the robber baron narrative before. Have you? What are the origins of all out biggest publishers? 4/4

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'Whatever the Sackler family is trying to do by collecting art and endowing museums, lifting their skirts away from the hundreds of thousands addicted and killed by prescription opioids manufactured and sold by their company — 3/4

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She mentions Straus’ penchant for ascots and cashmere jackets. She laments the lack of accountability. 'Roger W. Straus Jr. completes the process of whitewashing the family name,' she writes. 2/4

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From a review of Murderland: "Her fury blazes beyond balance sheets and into curated spaces of elites. She singles out Roger W. Straus Jr., tony Manhattan publisher, patron of the arts and grandson of Daniel Guggenheim, whose Tacoma smelter may have scrambled Bundy’s brain. 1/4

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

People complaining that literary criticism and serious book reviews are dying and then . . .do absolutely nothing about it.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

I've always meant to ask you why you write in courier.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

It can happen to you: I just found my airpods, which I lost TWO YEARS AGO.

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Great. Now can we dig into what else they own and pay for? What political parties do they support? Why do we "trust" a segment of our literature to them?

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

I'd love to know who the actual people are who own the Big Five publishers. Not the corporate entities, but the actual people in charge, the hidden people, the majority shareholders who call the shots. They have names. Can someone please write this article?

Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

James Daunt of B&N says: "it is more likely that the Big Five and other publishers of comparative size will have “better books” than their smaller competitors." This is such a terrible and untrue thing to say! It's laughable, if it weren't such a terrible thing for every indie publisher to read.

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Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Why not ask the Big 5 Publishers to replace the lost NEA literature money?