lit a candle 17h ago66. That's young these days. Thinking of her father, Shelley Robert Crooms, in this.
Their story
This page was created 15h ago, as soon as Sandra’s death was reported. The full story, with chapters and answers to the questions people ask, is being written now and should appear within the hour. You can already light a candle or leave a tribute.
Sandra "Sandy" Jean Crooms spent nearly four decades in American book publishing, rising from an entry level marketing job to become one of the most respected acquisitions editors in university press publishing. At the time of her death she was editorial director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, where she…
Sandra "Sandy" Jean Crooms spent nearly four decades in American book publishing, rising from an entry level marketing job to become one of the most respected acquisitions editors in university press publishing. At the time of her death she was editorial director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, where she oversaw the acquisitions department and built lists in environmental history, urban studies, regional Pennsylvania titles, and African American history and culture.
Crooms was born on August 15, 1960, in Florida, the daughter of Peggy A. Gainey Crooms and Shelley Robert Crooms, and she grew up in Lynn Haven, in the Florida Panhandle. She earned a degree in marketing and advertising from the University of Florida before starting her publishing career in 1987 in the marketing department of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in Orlando. She later worked for a business to business publisher in Boston before moving into acquisitions, the side of the business where editors commission and shape the books themselves rather than sell them after the fact.
She described the move into acquisitions as finding her professional footing. She acquired books at the University of Nevada Press in Reno and at two other university presses, eventually becoming senior editor at Ohio State University Press, before joining the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2013 as editorial director. There she acquired manuscripts that crossed history of science, Latin American studies, and Russian and Eastern European studies, alongside her core interests in environmental history, urban history, and African American studies, and she also championed regional books celebrating the history and natural landscape of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.
Colleagues and authors who worked with Crooms over the years knew her as a steady, encouraging presence behind the scenes of academic publishing, the kind of editor whose name appears in acknowledgments pages rather than on book covers but whose judgment shaped which scholarly ideas found their way into print. Scholars she worked with at Ohio State University Press publicly thanked her for her guidance, patience, and expertise in bringing their books to completion.
Sandra Jean Crooms died on September 22, 2026, at the age of 66, after living with Alzheimer's disease. Her death was confirmed through funeral home and newspaper obituaries published in the days that followed, which described her career in publishing and the family she left behind, including her father, two sisters, a brother, and a niece. News of her death was reported under the headline describing her as an academic publishing veteran, reflecting the long and varied career she built across several university presses.
She was remembered by family not only for her professional accomplishments but for the value she placed on books and language long before she entered the industry, a trait her obituary traced back to a childhood home where her mother posted vocabulary words around the house to encourage reading and learning.
Biography adapted from News reports and the sources cited on this page; death reported by Publishers Weekly.
