On Monday, we kicked off University Press Week with a tremendous blurb from Nona Willis Aronowitz about the value of working with a university press. Today, we are pleased to wrap up #UPWeek with not one, but THREE more blurbs from beloved authors who value our particular model of publishing.
Working and publishing with a university press means I can count on the editors and the whole team. They are the supporting quality control who tell when something works and when it doesn’t, and pushing my writing and the arguments to improve. The best editor encourages you to be provocative and to experiment but to always remain rigorous. It’s this level of engagement that makes our work as writers and academics motivating.
—JUSSI PARIKKA, professor in technological culture and aesthetics at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Author, with Minnesota, of A Geology of Media, The Anthrobscene, and Insect Media.
I regularly felt like my editor “got” me. That means a lot of things. One, he knew where my book fit in my field as well as other fields, and really encouraged me to make my book accessible to a variety of audiences. My editor also understood that my publication process needed to fit into a tenure clock and what that meant in terms of timelines for me. I also felt like I always knew what was going on in the book production process and what was expected of me. I never felt in the dark with UMP, and am positive that the success of my book is largely attributed to the care they took in producing it. That care and all of these particular benefits, I felt, came directly from dealing with a nonprofit university press.
—ADRIENNE SHAW, assistant professor of media studies and production at Temple University and author of Gaming at the Edge.
University presses still value quality over quantity in the publishing of books, and while they may move a work to completion more slowly, university presses still care for the details of language and layout. University presses also take on works that commercial publishing houses would never touch, book projects whose importance and influence outweighs the relatively small readership they might receive. These presses are truly a national treasure.
—THOMAS FISHER, director of the Metropolitan Design Center at University of Minnesota. Author of Designing Our Way to a Better World, The Invisible Element of Place, and Salmela Architect.
In the wrapping up of #UPWeek, a number of presses are publishing content in conversation with authors. The Chicago Blog has a useful roundup of today’s posts.
In addition, we recommend checking out a video posted earlier this week, “Opening Access: The Reinvention of the Academic Book,” featuring, among many esteemed speakers, discussion with Matt Gold about our Manifold Scholarship project.
Happy reading! #ReadUP.