University of Arkansas Press
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| Parent company | University of Arkansas |
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| Founded | 1980 |
| Headquarters location | Fayetteville |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www |
The University of Arkansas Press is a scholarly press that is part of the University of Arkansas and the American Association of University Presses. Established in 1980, it has as its central and continuing mission the publication of books that serve both the broader academic community, Arkansas, and the region. It is housed in the McIlroy House in Fayetteville.
Contents
History
Founded in 1980 by Miller Williams and Willard Gatewood, the press publishes work by scholars and authors in history, science, creative writing, poetry, translation, and Middle Eastern studies. The UA Press’s first publication was The Governors of Arkansas: Essays in Political Biography in 1981 edited by Willard Gatewood and Timothy Donovan. In July 1982, Stephanie Brown became the press’s first editor, with Miller Williams in acquisitions.
The press has suffered through two fires during its decades long operation. In November 1983 the McIlroy House, which was renovated to house the press, suffered severe fire damage, but the press quickly got back to normal operations and even grew their areas of publications as they opened a London office to expand to other markets. In September 1987, another fire took over the warehouse damaging many books.[1]
Due to financial and administrative concerns, the UA Press was closed in 1997, but after complaints from the public and prominent Arkansans, the University of Arkansas administration reopened the press in 1998. That same year, the press became a non-profit and hired Lawrence Malley as the director. Malley expanded the press’s content to include texts on the Middle East partially in response to the new King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. The press continues to publish about twenty titles per year ranging from local to global content.[2]
Poetry
The University of Arkansas Press is known for its award winning poetry books and its poetry series as it publishes well established authors and up-and-coming poets. Miller Williams, as a friend of President Jimmy Carter, supported Carter’s poetry and the press published works by the former president and his wife Rosalynn Carter, but the press still continued to publish their traditional works on Arkansas culture and history as well.[3] Other notable poets published by the UA Press include John Ciardi, Frank Stanford, Leon Stokesbury, and Robert Mezey.
Though the press has had a poetry award since 1990, the press has grown its support for poetry with the Miller Williams Poetry Series. From this annual contest, four finalists are awarded publication, one of whom also wins the Miller Williams Poetry Prize with a $5,000 cash award.
After thirty years of operations, the press continues to release documentaries, history texts, poetry, fiction, translations, and texts on the Middle East.
Notable authors
Billy Collins
Daisy Bates
Dale Bumpers
Maxine Kumin
Donald Justice
Dana Gioia
Jimmy Carter
John Williams
Frank Stanford
Ellen Gilchrist
Robert Mezey
R. S. Thomas
Leon Stokesbury
Series
Miller Williams Poetry Series
Food and Foodways
The Civil War in the West
Fay Jones Collaborative Series
Sport, Culture, and Society
Portraits of Conflict
Etel Adnan Poetry Series
Journals
This semi-annual journal is published by the University of Arkansas Department of Philosophy.
Submissions
The press encourages submissions to the Miller Williams Poetry Series and accepts unsolicited proposals for scholarly books in the social sciences and humanities as well as nonfiction works of local or regional interest.
