Where we StepUP in Texas to bring great literature to book lovers across the city
The University of Texas Press serves readers globally, but we like to lend special attention to the people and places of Texas. As part of the Association of University Presses’ UP Week, the University of Texas Press is highlighting the work we do across the Texas literary sphere to show how we StepUP for our home region and the book lovers within it. You can read more about where other university presses StepUP here.
Aside from publishing both regionally focused and wide-reaching scholarship, UT Press hosts events with local libraries and independent bookstores across Texas, collaborating with local venues on book talks, launches, and signings. At each of these events, we introduce our scholarship to new minds, broaden our readership, and help define alternative roles university presses can play in their local spheres. UT Press also attends regional book festivals and trade shows year-round, and we will be vendors at this year’s Texas Book Festival, coming up this weekend (November 16th & 17th). If you’ll be in town, you are welcome to visit our booth and peruse our featured session schedule to say hello to some of your favorite UTP authors.
As individual members of the Austin community, the staff members of UT Press do our part to support our book loving community by being active patrons of our local bookstores and libraries. Quite a few of us paid Alienated Majesty Bookshop a visit in the store’s earliest days, perusing their fresh selection of translated literature and new finds from UPs and indie publishers nationwide. Melynda Nuss, the store’s owner, and C. Rees, bookseller and event coordinator at the store, even remember some of our moments spent sifting through the stacks:
[Alienated Majesty Bookshop] has been around for a little over a year now, and we met some of the UT Press staff first as customers in the first few months that our bookshop was open. At that point, we were still figuring out sourcing university presses in the shop. A few UT Press folks stopped by a bit later in the year to get a sense of what books we carried. After asking us about our interests and mission as a bookshop, they dropped off a selection of titles for us to test out in the store. It has been a rare treat to get to know a press through our community first, and second as a publisher.
Melynda Nuss & C. Rees, Alienated Majesty Bookshop
It’s a special treat to forge personal connections with local book lovers and sellers, and to be able to host a book event in a space many of us frequent outside of working hours. In our most recent event with AMB, we held a conversation, book signing, and punk show to celebrate Chuco Tara López’s Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso.
“Jenny Cisneros, native El Pasoan and former vocalist of the punk band Sbitch, joined Tara for a conversation that drew us into the punk and DIY music scene of El Paso and Austin in the 80s and 90s,” write Nuss and Rees. They added that “UT Press brought in The El Paso in Austin Network, and the event turned out a vibrant and enthusiastic community.”
It has been a rare treat to get to know a press through our community first, and second as a publisher.
Melynda Nuss & C. Rees, Alienated Majesty Bookshop
The UT Press is a great partner for us; as a first rate book publisher, they provide us with excellent programming content to share with the community
Tim Staley, Austin Library Foundation
UT Press also has a strong relationship with the Austin Library Foundation, with whom we’ve collaborated on book launch events annually for the past three years. The Library Foundation opened its doors to us for an array of books with varying subject matter, lending space and time for us to celebrate the vibrant DIY scene cataloged in A Curious Mix of People, the jubilant cowboys of Juneteenth Rodeo, and the hard-working character actors in Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music.
Our relationship with the library originated “through an arrangement with a charitable foundation that supports both the library and the UT Press,” writes Tim Staley, executive director of the Library Foundation since 2008. He continues, saying the Austin Library Foundation “look[s] forward to continuing and even expanding upon the partnership,” as does UTP.
The book launches we have collaborated on previously garnered large audiences, as the greater Austin literary community steps out in support of their fellow local writers and interested readers are drawn in by the reputation of the Library Foundation’s programming. The attention we’re able to lend these books and their authors makes these launches fun and exciting for community members, library patrons and staff, and press members alike.
On behalf of the Library Foundation, Staley revels in how prosperous our relationship has been for all parties, referring to our partnership as “a wonderful success”: “UT Press is a great partner for us; as a first-rate book publisher, they provide us with excellent programming content to share with the community through library events.”
We believe it is the job of book publishers to be “a focal point where the life experiences, insights, and specialized knowledge of writers converge to be disseminated in both print and digital formats.” This line, taken from our own mission statement, summarizes the work we do each day within the Press, and outside of it in our local communities.
You can learn more about the Austin Library Foundation here, and follow Alienated Majesty Bookshop on Instagram and Facebook. Click the following links for more information on upcoming events & programming from the Library Foundation & Alienated Majesty Bookshop!
