iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I've spent almost my entire adult life in the Midwest and they still got me (Delaware born and raised)

Screenshot of a dialect map indicating in from Philadelphia/New Jersey

Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

I officially entered my tribute band era last night. Dead Letter Office was fantastic, as was being surrounded by joyous sweaty co-fans swapping stories of their first shows and favorite songs. @remhq.bsky.social

Set list from REM tribute band Dead Letter Office

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

This senior living activity schedule took an unexpected turn

Wednesday, May 13, 2026:
Women's Waffle Breakfast
Wesley Glen Today
Balance & Brains
Daily Chronicle/Today in History
Arts & Crafts
Catholic Mass
Words that Start with … C
Edcom: Civilization Collapse

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Sometimes we paws our reading to watch the wind

An adorable brown and black tabby cat blinking in the sunlight as she contemplates a windy afternoon from atop a bookshelf under the window. A copy of the Centennial edition of "The House of the Seven Gables" lies at her paws.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

All of our #AWP2024 books are 50% off today at booth 456! Scintillating conversation with me and @kristener.bsky.social is free

A photo of the OSU Press booth at the AWP conference, showing an array of colorful covers against a Mad Creek Books banner, and a handwritten “50% off” sign.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

@austinaraujo.bsky.social living the #AWP2025 life & signing AT THE PARK ON THE EDGE OF THE COUNTRY at the Ohio State University Press booth (456). Everything 30% off! @kristener.bsky.social

Poet Austin Araujo looking down and smiling as he signs his new book at the OSU Press AWP booth.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

I’m wrapping presents with my artist/high spatial intelligence sister and she just looked at my handiwork and said “It’s okay, we just honed different parts of our brains.”

A box clumsily wrapped in white Christmas wrapping paper with gold fir trees on it.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

This is cracking me up. Good job, iPhone. #cats #petfriends

A screenshot of the cover image for an auto-generated iPhone “Memories” slideshow called “Pet Friends,” featuring a black cat standing over the dead rat or large mouse she brought onto a rug. The back of the rodent’s neck is bitten out. The flash is making her eyes glow alien yellow.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Every time I see this photo in my husband’s family cookbook (you know, the spiral-bound type with lots of recipes for cheese balls and hot dish), I think she looks like Tori Amos.

A ca. late 19th or early 20th century formal photograph of a young white woman with a broad face, high cheekbones, and shallow-set eyes, with a slight smile. She is wearing a black, high-necked free and her hair js piled in soft curls on top of her head. Caption: “Mary Ann (Mamie) Nelson as a young woman.”

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

I’m not sure what to make of this comment on a NYT stuffing recipe

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

New Orleans-bound to staff the @ohiostatepress.bsky.social booth at #NCA2024. Come by for the best #teamrhetoric books in the biz or to talk to our acquisitions editor, Tara Cyphers (currently stuck on the tarmac in Atlanta so broke out my regionally appropriate reading).

The book The Name of This Band is R.E.M., by Peter Carlin, atop an airplane tray table

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

I’m so stressed out. Here’s my cat.

A small tabby cat under a light pink blanket on the bottom bunk of a wooden doll bunk bed with the American Girl Doll Kirsten on the top bunk.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

He just texted me this afternoon in excitement

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 14/08/2024

There was a veritable buckeye carnage on my street in Columbus!

A bunch of crushed buckeyes on a paved street

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 17/05/2024

My cat discovered my neighbor’s catnip patch and after spending ten minutes licking and biting at it furiously settled in for contented snuggles (I think she needs a cigarette).

A close-up photo of a brown and gray tabby cat hunched among a cluster of catnip plants in a raised garden bed.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

A painting got shipped to the wrong address and an employee signed for it, realized they weren’t the recipient, and THREW IT IN A DUMPSTER. As art tragedies go, we’ll all recover but this really upsets me! The painting is gone. But lives on in an Instagram screenshot?

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

I’m unreasonably angry about this.

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

I made this prose better with my feet

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Samara Rafert @rafertess.bsky.social · 19/10/2023

A year ago, my cat tried to open the door. (She died a month later of a fluke heart condition at 7 months old. Her successor does not seem to be nearly so dexterous.)

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