March 14, 2018
An estimated 130,000 book lovers attended this weekend’s 10th annual Tucson Festival of Books. It was a very busy weekend for the Press, with more than twenty of our authors participating in panels, readings, and booth signings. Today we look back at some of the highlights of the two-day event:
February 1, 2018
The University of Arizona Press is gearing up for the tenth anniversary of the Tucson Festival of Books (TFOB), to be held Saturday, March 10, and Sunday, March 11, on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, Arizona!
TFOB is a major literary event, regularly drawing more than 400 authors from across the country and more than 135,000 attendees. Panels, readings, and other author activities present a fantastic opportunity to hear from talented authors on a wide range of subjects. Visit the TFOB website and browse the offerings by participant or genre, then create a personalized schedule. There are plenty of family and entertainment activities, including a free concert on Saturday night by the star-studded Rock Bottom Remainders, the self-proclaimed “hard-listening” band.
The UA Press will have a large booth on the mall with a wide selection of books for sale at great discounts and signings by our authors. Stay tuned for more information!
January 17, 2018
Discrimination is rampant, and working conditions are poor. Safety, pay, and class-war all threaten the future of one of the highest producing copper mines in the United States. Workers are pitted against owners, as the rich receive their keep and leave the bees to fend for the mighty Copper Queen Mine. This may sound like a recurrent story, and it is! For the town of Bisbee, Arizona, it’s actually a centennial of truths reenacted every July.
Such is the basis of Robert Greene’s new documentary film, Bisbee ’17, premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah:
It’s 2017 in Bisbee, Arizona, an old copper-mining town just miles from the Mexican border. The town’s close-knit community prepares to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bisbee’s darkest hour: the infamous Bisbee Deportation of 1917, during which 1,200 striking miners were violently taken from their homes, banished to the middle of the desert, and left to die.
Townspeople confront this violent, misunderstood past by staging dramatic recreations of the escalating strike. These dramatized scenes are based on subjective versions of the story and “directed,” in a sense, by residents with conflicting views of the event. Deeply personal segments torn from family history build toward a massive restaging of the deportation itself on the exact day of its 100th anniversary.
Filmmaker Robert Greene confronts the current political predicaments of immigration, unionization, environmental damage, and corporate corruption with direct, haunting messages about solidarity and struggle. With consummate skill and his signature penchant for bending the boundaries of documentary, Greene artfully stirs up the ghosts of our past as a cautionary tale that speaks to our present.
But this isn’t the first time Bisbee’s secret has been told. In 1999, the Press re-released Robert Houston’s Bisbee ’17, for which the new film takes its name. Houston, a novelist and professor emeritus in creative writing at the University of Arizona, vividly re-creates a West of miners and copper magnates, bindlestiffs and scissorbills, army officers, private detectives, and determined revolutionaries in his historical fiction novel.
The protagonists in a bitter strike: the Wobblies (the IWW), the toughest union in the history of the West; and Harry Wheeler, the last of the two-gun sheriffs. In this class-war western, they face each other down in the streets of Bisbee, pitting a general strike against the largest posse ever assembled.
Against this backdrop runs the story of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, strike organizer from the East, caught between the worlds of her ex-husband—the Bisbee strike leader—and her new lover, an Italian anarchist from New York. As the tumultuous weeks of the strike unfold, she struggles to sort out what she really feels about both of them, and about the West itself.
December 6, 2017
The University of Arizona Libraries named poet, scholar, and Sun Tracks Series Editor Ofelia Zepeda this year’s Library Legend. The Libraries feted Zepeda with a dinner at the Arizona Inn last month, where friends and colleagues gathered to recognize Zepeda’s lifetime contributions to letters, learning, and libraries.
Shan Sutton, Dean of Libraries, said of Zepeda, “When I think of Ofelia Zepeda, I am most impressed with her ability to transcend time. She seems to blend past and present seamlessly, summoning historical Tohono O’odham wisdom to provide context for her astute observations of life today.”
Among her many honors, Zepeda is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and she is the author of two acclaimed collections of poetry and a guide to Tohono O’odham grammar, proudly published by the University of Arizona Press.
Kathryn Conrad, Director of the University of the Arizona Press, said, “I am awed and gratified by Ofelia’s vision to preserve language and culture through bilingual literature, poetry, stories and songs. For her deft leadership, her sound editorial judgement and her ability to see into the future, we owe Ofelia a deep debt of gratitude. Ofelia, thank you.”
Previous Library Legend honorees include University of Arizona Press authors and supporters Bernard L. “Bunny” Fontana, Jim Griffiths, and John and Helen Schaefer.
For this year’s event, Zepeda read her poem “The Way to Leave your Illness,” which shares the poet’s recognition and gratitude for the important and healing work of libraries and learning.
The Way to Leave Your Illness
By Ofelia Zepeda
If you have an illness that won’t go away,
take a journey.
When you get there, leave it.
Place it on a rock; throw it into moving water;
bury it. Throw it into the wind.
Let it go.
Leave it there for others.
She had been sick for many days.
In her frustration she remembered
what her grandmother used to say,
“Take it far away and leave it there.”
She walked to the other end of campus
toward the library.
In her mind she left the discomfort, ache, pain, there.
She walked back, comforted,
knowing she didn’t bring it back with her.
Her illness is now hidden in the stacks.
Perhaps it is temporarily in periodicals.
Or archived in Special Collections.
or perhaps in fiction, no longer real.
From Where Clouds are Formed copyright 2008 Ofelia Zepeda
November 20, 2017
This past week, Frederick Luis Aldama had the pleasure of taking part in the American Book Review’s Reading Series, hosted by the University of Houston-Victoria.
Aldama’s visit included a public reading and discussion of his short fiction collection Long Stories Cut Short, a roundtable discussion with UHV faculty and students, and a week-long residency on the campus.
November 13, 2017
Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting a special celebration in honor of travel writer Tom Miller and the release of his latest book Cuba, Hot and Cold.
The event capped off University Press Week and was the latest in a series of collaborations with the University of Arizona Libraries’ Special Collections, who holds Tom Miller’s papers in their archives.
Nearly a hundred members of the Tucson community came out for the occasion and were treated to touching tributes from Miller’s long-time friends, James Reel and Eliana Rivero, as well as a taste of Cuban music from pianist Liudvik Luis Cutiño Cruz.
A brilliant raconteur and expert on Cuba, Miller was full of enthralling behind-the-scenes stories, including a humorous tale of the day Havana cops accused him of distributing copies of the United Nations Human Rights Declaration of 1948.
Thanks to the University of Arizona Libraries team, we’re proud to provide a full video of the event below.
Photos courtesy Tim Fuller
November 6, 2017
This week we celebrate University Press Week and the importance of scholarship alongside our peers in the Association of American University Presses.
Since 2012, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) has celebrated University Press Week each year to help tell the story of how university press publishing supports scholarship, culture, and both local and global communities.
In today’s political climate—where “fake news” and “alternate facts” are believed by so many people—valuing expertise and knowledge can feel like a radical act.
University presses not only believe in facts and knowledge, but traffic in them daily, publishing approximately 14,000 books and more than 1,100 journals each year, read by people around the globe.
One of our greatest partners in this venture have been independent bookstores. For the past three years, we have been proud to collaborate with the University of Arizona Bookstores, Antigone Books, and Changing Hands, who have graciously built UP Week displays to showcase the diversity and far-reaching impact of our publishing program.
To all of our readers, reviewers, authors, contributors, and partners, thank you for celebrating with us and your continued dedication to promoting smart, fun, and valuable books that contribute to our rich reading community.#ReadUP
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