Ashley Seil Smith
A hefty biography of controversial Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. A sharp collection of Milwaukee-based stories that question the notion of a “post-racial” society. A cookbook featuring pies and other Dairy State delights derived from Scandinavian tradition. A moody murder mystery set in Door County. And a verse translation of Sophocles’ greatest Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex.
These five books were the top sellers for the University of Wisconsin Press between July 2014 and June 2015.
“There’s breadth in that list,” says Dennis Lloyd, the new director of the press, who arrived in May after working at five other university presses, most recently the University Press of Florida. “What I like about it is it shows a range of successful books. I would worry if it were all the same type of book.”
That kind of diversity has driven the University of Wisconsin Press for almost 80 years. But its current top-sellers aren’t necessarily the types of titles on which the press has built its hard-earned national reputation, suggesting the publishing house is in the midst of an evolution.
“We need a little more focus,” Lloyd says. “Right now, we’re spread out. It’s really difficult for us to establish ourselves in any particular field.”
The UW Press publishes about 50 books per year. The objective, he explains, is to double that output in some subject areas — which means publishing fewer titles in others. Lloyd says the Press plans to take a hard look at sales figures, analyzing how existing books “have been received in the world” and determining the number of publishers active in certain subjects. He stresses that the Press will not eliminate jobs or drop titles.
“It’s difficult work, but it’s important to do this right,” he says. “I’ve been very clear that this is something we have to do. The longtime viability of the Press is at stake.”
The University of Wisconsin Press, like its peers at other educational institutions, is a nonprofit operation. Originally founded to publish scholarly work that leads to tenure for professors, the press publishes books by authors at the UW and other universities — and it will continue to do so, even though the academic impact of these titles far outweighs their financial rewards.
“It is important for the UW Press to continue to publish quality scholarly works, because that is its primary mission,” says Stanley Payne, co-author of the publisher’s best-selling Franco: A Personal and Political Biography. Payne, a professor of history emeritus at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has worked with the press since 1971 and might well be its most-published author. “Everyone publishes novels, but the purpose of a university press is to bring out new research and cutting-edge scholarship, though that is admittedly limited by the need not to lose too much money.”
Funding for the press comes from the UW’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education. Despite a new two-year state budget that slashes $250 million from the UW System and removes tenure protections for UW professors, Lloyd feels confident the press is secure. He says its annual operating budget is around $3.6 million, with less than 10% of that derived from state funding. The majority comes from sales of books and subscriptions to journals, with a smaller contribution from various grants and subsidies.
And the press will see only a minimal reduction in state funding this year — $500 — as a result of the recently passed 2015-2017 budget, according to Petra Schroeder, the associate vice chancellor for administration.
Lloyd takes that as a vote of confidence from university administration. “The office wants us to succeed.” But, he adds, “We don’t know what the second year will bring.”
One of the ways Lloyd sees opportunity for the Press is to develop a line of mysteries. This spring it published two high-profile titles in the genre: A Winsome Murder by longtime American Players Theatre actor James DeVita and Death at Gills Rock, the second title in Chicago-based novelist Patricia Skalka’s Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series.
“By publishing creative fiction, the press not only entertains the public, but it also promotes reading and encourages lively conversations about books,” says Skalka, noting that the press’ mission is to contribute to a literate culture.
These newer developments complement the UW Press’ long-established authority in the publishing world, bolstered over the past year with reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the London Review of Books.
“We’ve evolved, over the last 10 years or so, into an ambitious, creative, nationally — and in some cases, internationally — known publisher with a reputation for producing important books,” says UW Press executive editor Raphael Kadushin.
The press is perhaps most well known for publishing quality regional books covering Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest, classics such as David Mulroy’s bestselling Oedipus Rex translation, poetry, environmental and human rights titles, African and Slavic studies and LGBT books.
“We are considered one of the top LGBT publishers in the world, and we are probably the leading arts institution in town consistently producing important LGBT art,” Kadushin says. He cites the award-winning “Living Out” series, which embraces the full range of the LGBT experience, as the only series in the world devoted to LGBT memoirs.
The press also publishes 11 peer-reviewed academic journals in the humanities, social sciences and medicine.
“University presses have come a long way, and it’s obvious UWP is one of the leaders,” says Manhattan-based author Michael Carroll, whose press collection, Little Reef and Other Stories, won the 2015 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. “Many are surprised fiction is published at any university press, but the selection of titles [at UWP] is impressive.”
Lloyd plans to improve upon the press’ impressive list, as well as retain its strong relationship with writers.
“I’ve worked with eight different publishers over my career as an author, and UW was the most professional of all of them,” says Trebor Healey, a Los Angeles-based author who won multiple awards from the LGBT publishing community for his 2012 novel, A Horse Named Sorrow, depicting San Francisco in the 1980s and ’90s. “They have a discerning eye and a sense of what is important to chronicle, preserve and add to the wider historical and cultural context.”
In a move that may represent the future of publishing, UW Press recently partnered with Dust-to-Digital, a record label specializing in documenting the history of American popular music, to publish Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946 by James Leary. This mammoth multimedia project features five CDs of restored rare music, a documentary film and more than 430 pages of context and annotations. The project was co-published in late July in collaboration with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Association for Cultural Equity/Alan Lomax Archive.
“The future is good,” Lloyd says. “It’s not a future in which books are the center of everyone’s universe, but they are a part of what we do, how we communicate, how we share our knowledge, our culture, our research and our theories about the world. And I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”
