The University of Arizona Press
April 13, 2024
We are thrilled to be attending the 2024 Northern Arizona Book Festival (NOAZBF) in Flagstaff, AZ this week! On April 13, find our table in Heritage Square where we’ll have the University of Arizona Press’ latest Indigenous literature titles on sale for 35% off.
If you can’t attend this year, or if you need an extra copy of a book you discover at our table, we’ve got you covered: use AZNOAZ24 for 35% off all titles.
If you’re at the festival, don’t miss Assistant Editor Elizabeth Wilder, who is on an Indigenous Publishing Panel happening at 1:00 PM at the Theatrikos Theatre Company, 11 W Cherry Ave. See the full schedule of events for more details.
Are you an author or editor? Do you have a project that would be a great fit for The University of Arizona Press? To learn more about publishing with us, click here.
New Indigenous Literature Titles
Light As Light is acclaimed poet Simon J. Ortiz’s first collection in twenty years. The poems in this volume celebrate the wonders and joy of love in the present while also looking back with both humorous and serious reflections on youth and the stories, scenes, people, and places that shape a person’s life. Light As Light brims with giddy, wistful long-distance love poems that offer a dialogue between the speaker and his beloved. Written in Ortiz’s signature conversational style, this volume claims poetry for everyday life. The collection also includes prayer poems written for the speaker’s son; poems that retell traditional Acoma stories and history; and poems that engage environmental, political, and social justice issues—making for a well-rounded collection that blends the playful and the profound.
Elegiac and powerful, Ancient Light uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time. With vision and resilience, Kimberly Blaeser’s poetry layers together past, present, and futures. Against a backdrop of pandemic loss and injustice, MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), hidden graves at Native American boarding schools, and destructive environmental practices, Blaeser’s innovative poems trace pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal. With an Anishinaabe sensibility, her words and images invoke an ancient belonging and voice the deep relatedness she experiences in her familiar watery regions of Minnesota.
The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature is unprecedented. It showcases the breadth, depth, and diversity of Diné creative artists and their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose.This wide-ranging anthology brings together writers who offer perspectives that span generations and perspectives on life and Diné history. The collected works display a rich variety of and creativity in themes: home and history; contemporary concerns about identity, historical trauma, and loss of language; and economic and environmental inequalities.
Featured Series
Sun Tracks, launched in 1971, was one of the first publishing programs to focus exclusively on the creative works of Native Americans. The series has included more than eighty volumes of poetry, prose, art, and photography by such distinguished artists as Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, Simon J. Ortiz, Carter Revard, and Luci Tapahonso.
For questions or to submit a proposal to this series, please contact Assistant Editor, Elizabeth Wilder, at EWilder@uapress.arizona.edu.
