Tag Archives: Publishing

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES: Timely books bring depth to public debates and issues

At the University of Wisconsin Press, we’ve published many books on topics that seem ripped from current news headlines. Whether fiction or nonfiction, they offer broader or deeper perspectives on current events.

Deadly LieThis August, as the country was shocked by photos of heavily armed Ferguson, Missouri, police wearing camo and patrolling in a massively armored truck, former soldiers commented, “We rolled lighter than that in an actual warzone.” We had just published Lev Raphael’s Assault with a Deadly Lie, a novel of suspense touching on many hot-button issues—plagiarism, bullying, suicide, academic freedom, stalking—but most of all on the militarization of police in American towns and cities. Raphael wrote op-eds in the Huffington Post: Why Are We Arming Our Police Departments for War? and Do College Towns Really Need Tanks to Keep Them Safe?

The death of several unarmed black men this summer at the hands of police also underscoredSister the continuing importance of the story of Daniel Bell, murdered by two Milwaukee policemen in 1958. His sister, Sylvia Bell White, tells the story of her whole life, including Daniel’s murder and her quest for the truth to come out, in the book Sister: An African American Life in Search of Justice. Sylvia Bell White is a powerful witness to systemic racial injustice and public indifference to the wrongful deaths of African Americans.

This fall, we’ve published The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County, a novel by Jerry Apps. When Apps started plotting the novel several years ago, he was thinking about historic trees and various threats to them. A frac sand mine seemed like a good plot element; there were Apps-Great-Sand-Fracas-cabout ten mines being developed in western Wisconsin. By the end of 2013, sand mining had boomed. There were already more than 120 mines active or in development. Frac sand mining became the center of Apps’s story, as he portrayed the battles over land use in a fictional Wisconsin town. “Through fiction I’ve tried to illustrate, in an entertaining way, how complicated local development issues can be,” Apps wrote in a blog.

As Barack Obama was running for president, historian Bruce Mouser was finishing a book for us on George Edwin Taylor, an African American who ran for president in 1904 as the nominee of the National Liberty Party. In the fall of 2013, as President Obama made a case for airstrikesTorture against Syrian chemical weapons, we were preparing to publish Chris Edelson’s legal history of Emergency Presidential Power. Alfred McCoy’s Torture and Impunity, published shortly after revelations of torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, probes the political and cultural dynamics that have made impunity for torture a bipartisan policy of the U.S. government from the 1950s to the present.

Our list in Russian and Eastern European Studies has frequently intersected with world events, as well. War in the Balkans in the 1990s resulted in Yugoslavia dividing into seven countries by 2008, creating avid interest among diplomats, armies, and aid organizations in the language textbooks books we’d been publishing for Macedonian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, and Albanian. In 2012, as the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot was arrested for the vaguely defined crime of Microsoft Word - LaPierreCoverDesign.docx“hooliganism,” we were publishing Hooligans in Khrushchev’s Russia: Defining, Policing, and Producing Deviance during the Thaw by Brian LaPierre.  As Russian troops recently invaded Ukraine to reclaim the Crimean peninsula, we were publishing Russian–Ottoman Borderlands, edited by Lucien J. Frary and Mara Kozelsky, a historical overview of the frequent territorial disputes in the Balkans, Black Sea region, and Caucasus.

With a strong list of gay- and lesbian-interest books, we’ve published several that presaged or contributed to social conversations around gay family rights: Just Married: Gay Marriage and the Expansion of Human Rights by Canadians Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell;  Lawfully Wedded Husband: How My Gay Marriage Will Save the American Family by American Joel Derfner; and The Paternity Test, Michael Lowenthal’s novel about gay parenthood.Lawfully

The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq by Bronson Lemer was published in the midst of the final “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy debate. Joy Ladin’s moving memoir Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders prompted one reviewer to comment, “It is a fierce story of regular old human life: hideous choices, endless repercussions, occasional glory, frequent humiliation, abiding difficulty. It could have happened to us.” Her story continues to make news.

Remaking RwandaAnd when we published Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence, edited by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf, the book achieved a level of sales unexpected for an edited volume of scholarly essays. The cause of its success? A public denunciation of the book by the Rwandan government.

UNIVERSITY PRESS WEEK BLOG TOUR: Take a fascinating tour of other blogs from university presses.

Landscape Journal’s editorial office moves to University of GA

Check it out! Landscape Journal has a new editorial team and got a nice write-up in the University of Georgia’s The Red and Black:

… Landscape Journal, has chosen a new location to house its editorial offices the University of Georgia’s College of Environment and Design.

See the full article here.

UP Week Blog Tour: The Importance of Regional Publishing

University Press Week 2013

We’re excited to be participating in the UP Week Blog Tour, where presses will be blogging each day about a different theme that relates to scholarly publishing. For today’s theme of The Importance of Regional Publishing, visit the following University Presses:

Syracuse University Press features regional author, Chuck D’Imperio who will discuss the roots of regional writing in many of the “classics.” From oral testimonies to local guidebooks, these stories contribute to the culture and history of the region.

Fordham University Press Press Director Fredric Nachbaur, writes about establishing the Empires State Editions imprint to better brand and market the regional books, reflect the mission of the university, and co-publish books with local institutions.

UNC Press Editorial Director Mark Simpson-Vos highlights the special value of regional university press publishing at a time when the scale for much of what university presses do emphasizes the global.

University Press of Mississippi Marketing Manager and author of two books, Steve Yates, gives his thoughts on the scale of regional publishing and shares the sage advice of businessmen.

University of Nebraska Press’s Editor-in-Chief Derek Krissoff defines the meaning of place in University Press publishing.

University of Alabama Press will have a post for us, and University Press of Kentucky Regional editor, Ashley Runyon, writes on her unique editorial perspective as a born-and-bred Kentuckian as well as on preserving Kentucky’s cultural heritage. She’ll also talk about some of the fun things that make KY (and KY books) unique.

Louisiana State University Press will discuss the challenge of capturing an authentic representation of Louisiana’s culture, especially when it is an outsider looking in, as many authors (scholars or not) are. They’ll discuss how it takes more than just a well-written, thoroughly researched book to succeed in depicting the nuances of Louisiana’s food, music, and art.

Rounding out the day, Oregon State University Press will give an overview of regional publishing with specifics from the Oregon State University Press list.

Enjoy the rest of University Press Week! And be sure to keep a lookout for #UPWeek on Twitter.

UP Week Blog Tour: Wednesday

University Press Week 2013

We’re excited to be participating in the UP Week Blog Tour, where presses will be blogging each day about a different theme that relates to scholarly publishing. For today’s theme of Spotlight on Subject Area(s) Your Press is Known For, visit the following University Presses:

Wilfrid Laurier University Press starts things off with a post by Cheryl Lousley, editor of the Environmental Humanities series, about the engagement of environmental issues through the humanities disciplines, such as literature, film, and media studies.

University of Georgia Press series co-editor Nik Heynen will discuss the Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation series and how it relates to UGA Press.

Texas A&M University Press will have a post, and MIT Press has a post from Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director, who writes about the possibilities of the web MIT Press authors are using for scholarship, finding newly mediated ways to teach, conduct research, present data, and engage with various publics.

University of Pennsylvania Press acquisitions editors discuss the foundations and future of some of their press’s key subject areas.

And at University of Toronto Press they discuss the Medieval and Renaissance Studies lists at University of Toronto Press.

Enjoy the rest of University Press Week! And be sure to keep a lookout for #UPWeek on Twitter.

UP Week Blog Tour: The Future of Scholarly Communication

University Press Week 2013

We’re excited to be participating in the UP Week Blog Tour, where presses will be blogging each day about a different theme that relates to scholarly publishing. For the full Blog Tour schedule, click here.

For Tuesday’s theme of Future of Scholarly Communication, please visit the following University Presses:

Harvard University Press talks with Jeffrey Schnapp, faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard and editor of the new metaLABprojects book series, on the emerging currents of experimental scholarship for which the series provides a platform.

Stanford University Press’s Director Alan Harvey discusses the challenges presented by new technologies in publishing, and how the industry model is adapting to new reading-consumption habits.

University of Virginia Press interviews historian Holly Shulman, editor of The Dolley Madison Digital Edition and the forthcoming People of the Founding Era, looks at the need for university presses to adapt to new technologies, while acknowledging the difficulties of doing so.

University of Texas Press’s post is from Robert Devens, Assistant Editor-in-Chief for the University of Texas Press, on the future of scholarly communication.

Duke University Press has a post from Priscilla Wald, Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Duke University, on the slow future of scholarly communication.

University of Minnesota Press Editor Dani Kasprzak discusses a new UMP initiative.

And finally, Alex Holzman of Temple University Press explores the partnerships university presses and libraries can forge as the means of communicating scholarship evolves.

Enjoy the rest of University Press Week! And be sure to keep a lookout for #UPWeek on Twitter.

It’s University Press Week!

University Press Week 2013

We’re excited to be participating in the UP Week Blog Tour, where presses will be blogging each day about a different theme that relates to scholarly publishing. For the full Blog Tour schedule, click here.

We’re a bit late, but for Monday’s theme of Meet the Press, visit the following University Presses:

University Press of Colorado starts the tour off with a post featuring Laura Furney, managing editor, who has been at the press for 20 years, and is playing an integral role in two recent developments at UPC.

University of Missouri Press profiles David Rosenbaum, their new director who began Nov. 1, talking about his plans for the UM Press’s future and David’s transition back to a university press.

The University of Hawai‘i Press features the peripatetic academic publishing career of UHP’s soon-to-retire journals manager Joel Bradshaw. 

McGill-Queen’s University Press’s Jonathan Crago and Kyla Madden, key members of the Editorial Department, discuss their experiences in scholarly publishing and their vision for MQUP.

Penn State Press speaks with their “Invisible” manuscript editor, John Morris.

University Press of Florida features acquisitions editor, Sian Hunter, who is working to develop and grow innovative new subject areas.

Enjoy the rest of University Press Week! And be sure to keep a lookout for #UPWeek on Twitter.