The University of Arizona Press
May 30, 2023
We have another amazing season ahead of us at the University of Arizona Press. Here’s a preview of our upcoming fall 2023 season with the best the Press has to offer, from a debut novel and Indigenous poetry to space science, saguaros, Latinx studies, Indigenous studies, and the borderlands. Fall books are available for pre-order today! We highlight a few of our forthcoming books here.
Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid, the world’s first complete (and stereoscopic) atlas of an asteroid, is the result of a unique collaboration between OSIRIS-REx mission leader Dante Lauretta and Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company. Lauretta’s colleagues include Carina Bennett, Kenneth Coles, and Cat Wolner, as well as Brian May and Claudia Manzoni, who became part of the ultimately successful effort to find a safe landing site for sampling. The text details the data collected by the mission so far, and the stereo images have been meticulously created by Manzoni and May from original images collected by the OSIRIS-REx cameras.
Nestled between Texas and Mexico, the city of Laredo was a quaint border town, nurturing cultural ties across the river, attracting occasional tourists, and populated with people living there for generations. In Listening to Laredo, Mehnaaz Momen traces Laredo’s history and evolution through the voices of its people. She examines the changing economic and cultural infrastructure of the city, its interdependence with its sister city across the national boundary, and, above all, the resilience of the community as it adapts to and even challenges the national narrative on the border.
Humans have always been fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life, often wondering if we are alone in the universe. Drawing on Louis Friedman’s fifty years in the field, Alone but Not Lonely looks at the subject of extraterrestrial life, separating knowledge from conjecture, fact from fiction, to draw scientific and technical conclusions that answer this enduring question and examine the possibility of remotely exploring life on other worlds.
Alma García’s debut novel, All That Rises is set in El Paso, Texas. This multiple viewpoint novel is a story of two families—one Mexican American, one Anglo—who find themselves unexpectedly entangled with one another when each of their households separately implode. When the Mexican maid working in both houses begins to suspect that all is not what it seems, she is implicated in the unfolding of a web of mysteries, history, and border politics that forces all concerned to question their own pasts, their understanding of family, and their relationships to a part of the world like no other.
Light As Light is acclaimed poet Simon J. Ortiz’s first collection in twenty years. The poems in this volume are a powerful journey through the poet’s life—both a love letter to the future, and a sentimental, authentic celebration of the past.
Bringing Home the Wild follows a two-decade journey in ecologically guided urban gardening on a four-acre irrigated parcel in Phoenix, Arizona, from the perspective of a retired botanist and her science historian partner. Through humor and a playful use of language, author Juliet C. Stromberg introduces the plants who are feeding the couple, buffering the climate, and elevating their moods. She also acknowledges the animals and fungi who are pollinating the plants and recycling the waste. This work shows all of us the importance of observing, appreciating, and learning from the ecosystems of which we are a part.
In the Arms of Saguaros pictures how nature’s sharpest curves became a symbol of the American West. From the botanical explorers of the nineteenth century to the tourism boosters in our own time, saguaros and their images have fulfilled attention-getting needs and expectations. According to author William L. Bird, Jr., the history of the saguaro’s popular and highly imaginative range points to the current moment in which the saguaro touches us as a global icon in art, fashion, and entertainment.
Chicana Portraits details critical biographies of twelve key Chicana writers, offering an engaging look at their work, contributions to the field, and major achievements. Portraits of the authors are each examined by a noted scholar, who delves deep into the authors’ lives for details that inform their literary, artistic, feminist, and political trajectories and sensibilities. Editor Norma E. Cantú and artist Raquel Valle-Sentíes create a brilliant intersection of visual and literary arts that explores themes of sexism and misogyny, the fragility of life, Chicana agency, and more.
When Language Broke Open, edited by Alan Pelaez Lopez, collects the creative offerings of forty-five queer and trans Black writers of Latin American descent who use poetry, prose, and visual art to illustrate Blackness as a geopolitical experience that is always changing. Telling stories of Black Latinidades, this anthology centers the multifaceted realities of the LGBTQ community. Contributors challenge everything we think we know about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to experience a livable life.
Woven from the Center presents breathtaking basketry from some of the greatest weavers in the Greater Southwest. Each sandal and mat fragment, each bowl and jar, every water bottle and whimsy is infused with layers of aesthetic, cultural, and historical meanings. In this book, Diane D. Dittemore offers stunning photos and descriptions of woven works from Indigenous communities across the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico.
