Foosland [FOOS luhnd]. Champaign. Village (1959) seven miles southwest of Gibson City. Founded in 1874 and named for William Foos, an absentee landlord who owned some 3,500 acres in Champaign […]
Laughter by Loyal Jones
When I received an advance copy of my book, I first thought of James “Goober” Buchanan, who had written me recently at age 100 to say he hoped to live to […]
Illinois Place Name of the Day – Oct. 6, 2008
Bug Tussle. Franklin. According to a local story, the community was named when a revival meeting attracted more june bugs than attendees, and the congregation spent most of the evening […]
But I wanted that sentence to read ambiguously
In honor of Carol Betts’s retirement, I offer up a glowing example of how authors really do value their copy editors (via the New York Times): What My Copy Editor […]
Illinois Place Name of the Day – Oct. 3, 2008
Elizabeth. Jo Daviess. Village (1887) Twelve miles east-southeast of Galena. According to an Illinois state historical marker, in June 1832, at the height of the Black Hawk War, a group […]
Nobody wants to take the last one
All summer long several of our colleagues have shared lovely produce, most especially sweet grape tomatoes. So much produce was shared that some of it has sat for days abandoned […]
Taking the monograph online
The Chronicle of Higher Education investigates two new digital models for academic presses. “Scholarly publishers are well aware that more and more readers and libraries want to get hold of monographs […]
Illinois Place Name of the Day – Oct. 2, 2008
Bone Gap. Edwards. Village (1891) six miles northwest of Albion. Reportedly named for the large number of animal bones found by settlers in the 1830s (Harper, ed., History of Edwards […]
CBGB (Carol Betts, Goodbye)
From guest blogger Mary Giles. Carol Bolton Betts retired on Tuesday. As good copy editors do, she knew what to look for in a manuscript, saw things that most do […]
Illinois Place Name of the Day – Oct. 1, 2008
We just received finished copies of Edward Callary’s new book Place Names of Illinois. The publication date is November 3, 2008, and every weekday leading up to publication I will post […]
Rigoberto on Oni
Writing for Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors, Rigoberto González includes Oni Buchanan’s Spring in his roundup of recent poetry books published with an […]
Monday Morning
Sometimes day-to-day drudgery buries the idealism that likely lead to one’s choice to “work with books” (my only stated goal 10+ years ago) and for a university press. A passing, […]