Of the many steps on a book’s path to publication, “launch” probably has the most exciting name. It’s so exciting that it’s sometimes used twice—to name an in-house meeting where a manuscript is introduced by its acquiring editor to the rest of the house, and then later an event in the outside world to mark official publication at a bookstore, conference exhibit, or similar. (If you’re interested in knowing more about all this terminology, there are various “lifecycle of a book” graphics and videos circulating. This one from the University of Iowa Press seems straightforward, and helpfully includes the in-house launch meeting between revision and copyediting.)
I’ve participated in a lot of launch meetings over the years, but never, until this month, at Kent State University Press, one of the two houses where I currently have an at-large role. The book I described for KSU colleagues is Beyond Steel: Pittsburgh and the Economics of Transformation, by Chris Briem at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s a look at the city’s bumpy, contested, and incomplete journey away from steel. Look for it sometime this winter.
Beyond Steel is a great title for Kent State as the press expands its list in Rust Belt studies, building out from its traditional strength in books about Northeast Ohio into questions of place in the wider region. As for exactly what makes up the Rust Belt, well, it’s fun to debate—for my purposes it extends roughly from Syracuse, let’s say, to Detroit, and from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River. I think there are common questions about postindustrial transitions, extraction, flows of people and ideas, and lots else that can be posed about that sizable chunk of territory. And I think the wider world has a lot to learn from how people in the region answer those questions. As Richard Florida says in his blurb for Chris’s book, it’s “a must-read for all who care about the future of the Rust Belt, America, and postindustrial regions around the world.”
Another highlight from my gig at KSU is a work of literary nonfiction, now under advance contract, by Charisse Baldoria. Charisse is a writer, composer, musician, and teacher who moved to the US from the Philippines. Her time in Michigan and now Pennsylvania (where she’s currently a professor of piano at Bloomsburg) informs her writing about place, providing transnational perspective on issues like environment and race in postindustrial settings. Keep an eye out for her book with KSU, and in the interim have a look at—and a listen to—Charisse’s ongoing work. I think she’s the first author I’ve signed who has a presence on Bandcamp.
As some of my readers know, my other editor-at-large position is with the University of Oklahoma Press. I’ve been helping out at Oklahoma for almost two years, working with Jim Lang and Michelle Miller on a book series in higher education. The first book from the series came out last year and is approximately everywhere. Its hopeful, buoyant cover doesn’t hurt.
The sixth series title comes out this summer. Its cover picks up the umbrella motif and goes in a different direction.
Have a look at the whole series at the page from Oklahoma’s site, which includes info about pitching projects of your own. And if you’re thinking of shopping a Rust Belt book instead, email me at dkrissoff_gst at kent dot edu.
In spring of 2023 I quit what felt like a dream job, and I think I imagined spring would always conjure the anxiousness around that decision. A good launch, it turns out, can do a lot to restore the season’s springiness. Big thanks to everyone who’s read along these past couple of years as I have, with lots of help, figured out ways to continue working with books.
Stoked to be working on my book with you!
Am listening now to (the very good) "Varied Trio: V. Dance" from Charisse Baldoria's Gamelan On Piano long-player.
If you'll permit a *very* ignorant comment, I can imagine a musician with facility in Appalachian music connecting very well to that particular track, no matter how coincidental the similarities.
If you'll permit a self-referential comment, *I* have a presence on bandcamp (https://zachphillips.bandcamp.com/album/stars-vomit-coffee-shop-osr72), though the music pre-dates your signing me by 20 years, and didn't appear on bandcamp til a decade after your signing me [and I don't have my own bandcamp site; it's there courtesy of a kind man named Zach Phillips and his old label OSR Records]; republished the original liner notes here (https://koganbot.dreamwidth.org/361564.html); you'll notice my emotional ambivalence towards the music, but def recommend it, esp. "Highway 51" by Red Dark Sweet, "12 Varieties Of Worms" by the Pillowmakers, and "The Laughing Airplanes Of Kamchatka" by solo FK; am not northern Ohio myself, but Andrew Klimeyk (aka Andrew Klimek) and Charlotte Pressler of Red Dark Sweet were formerly and subsequently Cleveland area, and I once played JB's downstairs in Kent on a bill w/ Red Dark Sweet and Death Of Samantha.
Charlotte now lives in FL, but back in Cleveland in 1979 Charlotte published a first-rate (though unfinished) memoir of Cleveland area "new wave" (going back well *before* new wave was "new"), "Those Were Different Times" (https://realscatrecords.com/archive/charlotte-pressler-those-were-different-times); includes lots about Andrew's older brother Jaime Klimek and his band Mirrors. Jaime died last November, one of two titans of Cleveland music to pass recently, David Thomas being the other. Memoir doesn't get to David, who would've appeared in later installments, but does include early meetings of various musicians who went on to play in Rocket From The Tombs and Pere Ubu. Sincerely believe this is one of the best things written about music.
Proofreading: Don't know if spelling is Jaime or Jamie; appears more frequently as latter, but is former in Charlotte's memoir and in Wikipedia. I could find out easily enough, I'm sure, but honestly at the moment that question would feel intrusive.