Super 100th Spectacular!

Episode Transcript
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Maggie (00:07):
Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the
University of Minnesota Presspodcast. We are celebrating our
one hundredth podcast episodeand as it happens we are doing
this in the year of theUniversity of Minnesota Press's
centennial, its one hundredthyear of existence. We were
founded in 1925 and yes we aretwice as old as Saturday Night

(00:27):
Live and just as old as The NewYorker and The Great Gatsby, and
this episode contains a mishmashof chitchats with colleagues to
look back and look forward. I'mMaggie, producer of this podcast
and digital marketing managerhere, and I've been with the
University of Minnesota Pressfor seventeen years. I'm very
excited for you to meet some ofthe voices behind the press and

(00:49):
the amazing work that we do.
While none of my colleagues here have been here
for like the full one hundredyears, between us we've got far
more than one hundred years ofcombined experience. To quote
the wise Merve Emre, whoincidentally appeared on this
podcast episode 45, this quoteis from her podcast,

(01:11):
anniversaries are a good time totalk about continuity and
change. I started at the pressin 02/2008 when social media was
starting to be taken seriouslyas like a business tool. And in
my first year, I created ourpresences on Twitter and
Facebook, we started out withzero followers as one does. And

(01:31):
in order to gain followers, Istarted following presses that I
admire and the people in placesthat those presses were
following just ch ch ch.
Inevitably, one of thosefollowees was a literary blogger
at the time who wrote a blogpost that said how cool it was
that the University of MinnesotaPress was following them, that
there's this cool symbiosis thatthis new social media allows,

(01:53):
and that was the beauty of thoseearly days on those platforms.
Of course, I also consideredthat to them, the University of
Minnesota Press is following,are they wondering who's behind
the screen, maybe not so muchpicturing this young, curious
marketer with little experienceand no power, but hey, like
those were good times. There wassome speculation that the social
media thing might be the newhand selling. And while it gets

(02:16):
hard over time to imagine handselling to like an audience of
thousands in the same way, Istill think about that when we
consider new platforms to engagewith, like how might we talk
with audiences in a differentway here and think about how
while the ways we do this workare in a state of continual
change, the basic premises insome ways have endured and will
continue to. So now I'm going toopen it up to my colleagues

(02:39):
here, talk about an early officeor career memory.
Maybe it was your first day onthe job, maybe it was your first
decade on the job. What was theoffice culture like? Or what was
something memorable you did inyour first year? That sort of
thing.

Pieter (02:52):
Yeah, my name is Pieter Martin. I'm a senior
acquisitions editor here at thepress. I have been at the press
since September 1998, whichmeans I guess I'm going on my
twenty seventh year. I've beenat the press longer than I was
alive when I first got hired, Iguess, which is sort of
disturbing to think about, butthere you are. Yeah.
I mean, I gosh. I'm trying toremember when I first got

(03:13):
interviewed at the press, Iremember I interviewed very,
very clearly. I was interviewedby Doug, of course, the current
director, and then the theprevious regional trade editor,
Todd Oriola, and then theseveral humanities editors ago,
Will Murphy. And I was reallyexcited to get into book
publishing. I had prettyromantic ideas about it.
I remember Doug saying that, youknow, we're kind of like
librarians and I'm like, I don'twanna be a librarian, I wanna be

(03:36):
a book publishing. You know, Iremember being, you know, asked,
you know, what books I had read.I was what a couple of years out
of college, not terribly wellread, but I remember I love
Larry Millett's Lost TwinCities. And I remember that was
like, among whatever else I wasable to pitch to them. I think
that was sort of something thatprobably must have stood out
with him.
Yeah. I mean, gosh, the earlyoffice culture. I mean, I just

(03:59):
remember there was so muchpaper. Our lives were in the
sense that our lives now arecentrally tied to Slack. Our
lives back then were centrallytied to the copier, and then all
the paper we were putting in amailboxes.
And so it was a kind of analogworld. We had red folders with
copy in it. We had letterscoming in the mail. Right?

(04:21):
There's lots of things in themail, including formal book
submissions, authors sendingart.
It's kind of remarkable to thinkback to those days in the way in
which so much of what we used todo is now strictly digital,
including how we kind ofcommunicate with each other. As
an editorial assistant, one ofthe great rituals which felt
like it went back to thenineteenth century was stamping

(04:42):
manuscripts. So whenevermanuscripts went down the hall,
which meant handed over from theacquisition department to
production and copy editing, theeditorial assistant sat in the
copy room and and just stamped amanuscript. And sometimes that
was like 700 pages longstamping, stamping, stamping.

(05:03):
All the art and, you know, theart was in the back and the text
and every page was stamped.
So it was like this littlemachine that would rotate one,
two, three, four each time wentup and down. And that was the
final version that would go out.And copies of it, of course,
would have the stamping numberon each page. And of course, the
stamper is still in our kitchen,which I think is really

(05:24):
exciting.

Mike (05:25):
Yes, the stamper. Okay, my name is Mike Stoffel. I started
here at the press also in'ninety eight, just a couple of
months after Pieter. In fact, Idistinctly remember applying for
Pieter's job and not getting aninterview. And instead I came in
a couple months later for aneditorial assistant position.
It was the last time I wore asuit to the office and, no,

(05:49):
actually we did once for sort ofa prank day many, many years
later.

Pieter (05:53):
I'll just add on real quick that after I interviewed,
I was, you know, just a buttondown shirt and slacks. And Todd,
after I got hired, Todd told melike, you know, you really
should have worn a suit to theinterview.

Mike (06:03):
Oh, well, see. Yeah. So, you know, I wore a suit and, I
remember, interviewing with theproduction manager, Amy Unger at
the time and Laura, who wasstill at the press. Everybody in
the production department, I gotto meet them all and I sat down
and I took the grueling editingtest. I think I got the job

(06:24):
partially because I had takenthe editing classes that the
university offers, but alsobecause I had a psychology
background as an undergraduate,so I could speak MMPI, which is
something that we publish.
In the early days, I rememberthose manuscripts. They were
stamped for page numbers, andthat was the master copy.
Everything was done to thatcopy. It was sent off to the
copy editor, who in most caseswould hand edit. And then that

(06:48):
manuscript would then go to atypesetter after it was edited,
and the typesetter would flow inthe text and then make all of
the changes that the copy editormade.
Typesetting was very expensiveback in those days. And then
when it got to the proofreadingstage, you didn't just read
through looking for mistakes,you had the manuscript and you
had the proofs and you had toread them against each other to

(07:08):
see that all of the words werethere and all of the changes
were made properly. And it wasgrueling. One of the first
things I did at the press was toproofread. And the first thing I
had to proofread was the tablesfor a MMPI book.
And it was only numbers. It wasmind numbing. And it took me
weeks. Just, I was like, I'd belooking at it and finally, like

(07:29):
my brain, I could tell it hadstopped working. I had to do
something else so I could get itto work again, probably go make
some copies at that monumentalcopy machine that we used.
But what else do I rememberabout those early days? I
remember the camaraderie. Therewas a real fun culture. People
had been there a while, poppingin and out of each other's
offices. Some of my best friendsI met at the press and are still

(07:53):
my best friends.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of missthose days. Those are my early
memories.

Emily (07:58):
I'm Emily Hamilton. I have been working at the
University of Minnesota Pressfor twenty four years, last
week, I think. I'm the associatedirector and marketing director.
I started at the press beinghired as an exhibit assistant,
exhibits and marketing assistantas many people do. It's been a
stepping off place for a lot ofpeople who've been at the press.

(08:21):
I was interviewed by KathrynGrimes, who was a great mentor
to me and a wonderful person.When she would interview people,
she would give them what shecalled the fuck test. She would
work something into a questionor a description that called for
the f word and then see whatpeople did just to make sure

(08:42):
that they had the constitutionfor book publishing and all the
things that might happen thatmight elicit a a swearing spree.
Some of my earliest memories,one, you know, worldwide, one
more publishing specific. Iremember distinctly within, you
know, a couple of months ofstarting, we were, like,
starting to understand whatonline meant.

(09:03):
I remember this literally comingout of my mouth as we were
talking about Amazon.com that itseemed like we should just make
it another retail accountbecause it's probably not gonna
stick around that long. Samewith last words from me. The
year that I started the presswas also the year that we
experienced the nine eleventerrorist attack. And when that

(09:25):
started happening that morning,there were no TVs, there was no
streaming or live coverage ofanything, of course. So we went
up to the building office acouple of floors up and watched
on this tiny little televisionwhat was going in disbelief, of
course.
I would echo those early days ofthe press were so much fun.

(09:46):
There was just a lot ofcamaraderie. And as Mike has
said, I've made some of my bestfriends working there. Oh, and
I'll say that too, within notlong after I started, a distinct
memory is making a huge mistakeand, having to drive the exhibit
booth all the way to Chicagobecause of a shipping error.

(10:10):
And, yeah, those were the dayswhen something like that seemed
not only plausible, butnecessary to haul six exhibit
cases all the way to Chicago.

Heather (10:21):
Hi, I'm Heather Skinner. I am the Publicity
Director here at the press and Istarted way back in February. So
I guess I'm what, eleven ishmonths away from twenty years,
which just seems sort ofunfathomable. But it's been
great. It's been a great almosttwenty years.
Gosh, one of my first memories.So my path to the press, I used

(10:46):
to work for a new age publisherprior to my time here. The kinds
of books that I worked on therewere much, much, much different
than what the press publishes. Aformer colleague of mine, Ann
Wren, told me about thisposition being available. And at
the time I had been gone fromthat publisher and I was working
in actually television for aboutsix months, which was the worst

(11:08):
job move I think I ever made inmy life.
Terrible. So I was quick towanting to get out of
television. And I remember myinterview process being unlike
any other that I think we've putany publicist since through. Or
no, maybe we have. But anyway, Ihad to write a pitch, like,
there on the spot.
I had like ten minutes. I wasgiven just a random book from

(11:30):
the press, was able to read thejacket copy and then was told to
write a pitch. And then I had topitch it to Emily. I had to
pitch it to Doug. And that wasprobably the most nerve wracking
part of the interview wasactually meeting with Doug and
having to pitch a book to him.
But I must have done okaybecause I got the job. Just the
kind of the biggest seismicshift was to go from working for

(11:52):
a new age publisher to workingon content that I actually can
relate to and that I feel likereally excited and proud to
promote. I get to, you know,pitch the New York Times and
pitch major daily newspapers,and it's a lot more fun to write
pitches for our books. I loveour authors. We have so many

(12:15):
varied voices, and it's just funto be in this world and to have
been this, at this press for aslong as I have been.
Part of the thing that was alsoa big change was, you know, I
never had to actually do mediacalls before. And so my first
time ever going to New York andpitching the New York Times book
review editor, the first bookthat I had to pitch was about

(12:38):
male ejaculation. And I wasnever so mortified than to have
to pitch that book to the NewYork Times book review editor.
And I think I was red from,like, all you could see of my
skin all the way up.

Mike (12:53):
I remember that book well. I had to edit it and, I'm glad I
didn't have to deal with anybodyabout it.

Pieter (13:02):
That takes the Kathryn Grimes F word to a whole new
level.

Emily (13:07):
Even the transmittal meeting for that book was
mortifying.

Heather (13:11):
But I mean, overall, like everybody else has said, I
think my earliest memories ofthe culture here too, is just
that there have been so manypeople even when I joined that
had been there so long. And youcould tell that it was just
really a place that people loveto be. They love their
coworkers. They love the workthat they were doing. That
obviously comes with thesechallenges all the time, but you

(13:31):
power through and your workenvironment and the love of the
work that keeps you coming back.

Rachel (13:37):
Hi, I'm Rachel Moeller. I am the assistant production
and design manager and artdirector here. Started just a
year after Heather, so February.So I just celebrated eighteen
years at the press and it's beenthe bulk of my publishing work
life. I did work for just aboutsix months at a legal publisher

(14:00):
in town just before this job.
And that was quite a cultureshift coming from an office of
between 11,000 people and sortof all of the bustling that that
entailed. I I recall at that jobfor Thanksgiving, they gave
everyone a free turkey. And soyou would just, like, drive up
in this, like, loop and, openyour trunks, and they would

(14:22):
throw a frozen turkey in yourtrunk. Was very strange but
appreciated at that point in mylife. And then starting at the
press and having an office ofabout 30 at that point, the
biggest difference I recall wasjust how quiet it was that the
week I came in for my interviewwas right before the holidays.

(14:43):
I think there were like sevenpeople working at that point.
The office was so quiet. Andafter I got hired as the
production assistant, I did whatI could to change that as much
as possible. So I have a loudvoice. I laugh very loudly.
I like to have a good time atwork while I'm working hard. In

(15:05):
our old office, my cube was onbasically the other side of the
office as our director. And acouple years after I started,
Doug told me, it just kind of inpassing, he could tell when I
was out for the day because hecouldn't hear me laughing. And I
was a little bit mortified and alittle bit proud at the same

(15:25):
time. Lots of great memoriesfrom early on.
I took the production assistantjob after Mike had it. So lots
of great training from Mike. Idon't know if he'll remember
this, but my partner's name isalso Mike. And one of my early
passwords as Mike was trainingme was I like Mike. And then he

(15:45):
had to like help me log in.
And I'm like, well, it's notit's not you. It's it's my Mike.
It's not you, Mike. And I

Mike (15:53):
I remember. I

Rachel (15:55):
turned like 18 shades of red. It was very embarrassing.
Old password. Don't use thatanymore. So lots of fun.
I recall one of my early,nemesis was the box room. So
Pieter talked a lot about howour life was really directed by
the amount of paper we weremoving And that was really kind

(16:15):
of all we, not all we did, thatwas a lot of what we did in
production. Everything was hardcopy at that point. So all of
the proofs we were getting fromprinters, I think at that point
we were even ordering, Libraryof Congress information via
actual paper. And then we wereshipping proofs around.
We were shipping manuscripts tocopy editors, we were shipping

(16:36):
them to proofreaders, we wereshipping them to typesetters, to
indexers and we would invariablyend up with piles and piles of
boxes. In this room that wasjust kind of off the beaten path
in the office, I swear I wouldsee people walk by and just
pitch boxes in there sort ofrandomly without any, you know,
idea of what was happening andit would become a bit of a fire

(16:57):
hazard. Part of the productionassistant's job was to manage
the box room and I got sofrustrated at one point that we
came up with box room rules ofetiquette about how people
should and should not use thebox room. I recall too after
cleaning out the box room, wefound like film from a book that
had been printed like twentyyears prior, very, you know,

(17:21):
valuable film and there were allsorts of things that we
unearthed. Talking about bigmistakes, one of the earliest,
big mistakes I made is sort ofrelated to the paper theme.
This was when we were copyediting everything on paper. I
was supposed to make a copy andsend the copy to the translator

(17:41):
to review the copy editing and Iwas supposed to keep the
original because that's the onlycopy that we had of that, of all
of that copy edit work. And Iforgot, got distracted, didn't
make a copy, sent the originalcopy edited manuscript out to
the translator who was alreadyupset with production over his
cover design. He lived in Franceand refused to return the copy

(18:06):
editing until we changed hiscover. So held it hostage and
would not return the onlyversion that we had of that copy
editing until we changed hiscover and design.
So that was a big mistake on mypart. Never did that again. Good
learning opportunity for me. ButI will say that now that we are

(18:26):
in the digital world almostexclusively, I'm thankful that
those kinds of mistakes are nolonger.

Erik A. (18:34):
Hi, I'm Erik Anderson. I'm a senior acquisitions
editor. I started in marketing.So I started one year after
Rachel, January of two thousandand eight. There was a kind of a
January hiring pattern clearly.
And Emily interviewed me.Heather, maybe you sat in on
some of the conversations too,if I recall. I too remember the
silence. That was probably myfirst memory. My job before this

(18:57):
had been doing outdoor educationwith kids at an aquarium and it
was chaos all the time.
There were thousands of kidsrunning around. Your coworkers
were always coming into youroffice and they'd just been
stung by jellyfish or like,Timmy's in the tide pool, or
trying to wedge myself into myoffice chair to send an email
wearing a penguin outfit orsomething like that. So it was

(19:17):
just constant noise. And Iremember getting to the office
and it was the quietest libraryI'd ever been in. I remember
doing things like shootingrubber bands over the wall of my
cube into just random othercubes to see if I could get a
response from people who I knewwere okay getting hit by rubber
bands.
One of my first tasks, I think,I was an exhibits coordinator.

(19:40):
And one of the first things thatcame up was we were designing
swag for that year's BEA, and itwas for Dana Nelson's Bad for
Democracy. And we were coming upwith buttons and it was about
how the presidency is bad forAmerica. Interesting book. And I
remember getting to kind ofbrainstorm these buttons that we
were gonna print thousands ofand coming up with phrases like,

(20:01):
Hail no to the chief and AirForce none, I think was another
one, or like president.
And then realizing that the yearbefore the BEA swag for Anwar
Machine's book on heresy wasliterally boxes of matches that
we were shipping everywhere. SoI was like, okay, these are my
people. They might be quiet atwork, which is good, but this is
a playful, fun group. And so Ireally loved that. I remember

(20:24):
the years of being an exhibitscoordinator as spreadsheets and
fear.
It was great, but it was like,what books aren't going to
arrive? What book did I forgetto get on the spreadsheet? And
then the author's going to bemad. Will the posters arrive in
time? It was just a whirl ofspreadsheets and anxiety, but it
was really, really fun.
I think my first day on the job,the very first phone call I got

(20:47):
back in the days where peoplewould just call you, though I
still do that, felt like kind ofbeing baptized into regional
publishing. It was Bill Holm onthe phone, just randomly calling
because he was in desperate needof a copy of the new Spinoza
because he was heading to thedesert with Jim Harrison to eat
hot peppers. And so I justremember having to navigate

(21:11):
getting a copy of, as he said,the new Spinoza to him down in
his little town before he leftfor hot pepper eating. So that
kind of felt like a little bitof like a regional publishing
blessing for the first day.Yeah, I too remember lots of
paper.
I remember bubble wrapeverywhere. I remember those
gray cases trying desperately tofit everything in and not forget

(21:33):
anything. I remember hours uponhours in the book rooms in the
basement and getting stuck infreight elevators and waiting
for the big shipping trucks toarrive on time to hopefully get
the stuff out. Just a veryanalog experience, which was
yeah, a lot of fun and a greatway to learn industry really.

Maggie (21:53):
Thanks everybody. So our particular place of work is
unique because we get a wholebatch of new people to work with
all the time, which is kind ofamazing. So yeah, was just
thinking about like ourconnections to authors and to
the other people we work with.This podcast sometimes can be
like a mini book party forauthors, you know, if we're

(22:14):
inviting someone they know orsomeone they want to meet to
talk about their book. Andsometimes that's the first time
they've talked about their bookand it hits them like, oh, all
these decades of research orwhatever, this accumulation of
all this work is now coming tosomething.
And it can get kind of emotionaland it can get to be a really
kind of amazing experience. So Ithought I would just see if we

(22:36):
want to talk about any kind oflike very rewarding experiences
with authors or any rewards wesee seeing something we've
worked on. Like we get to see aphysical accumulation of work.

Pieter (22:48):
Yeah, I mean, oh, it's absolutely a incredibly
rewarding part of our job seeingthe physical book. Acquisitions
is kind of funny in a way. Imean, I guess it's true for all
of us though, because we'realways working out a year, at
least a year ahead, right, interms of the projects. And so
when the printed book arrivesfrom the printer, Rachel or
another production person dropsit on my desk, I'm like, oh,

(23:09):
wait. I'd almost forgotten aboutthe book in a way because we're
trying to find new manuscriptsor trying to get manuscripts to
deliver we can publish themagain in a year.
So there's always that funnyquality. It's funny temporal
kind of like where we are inspace and time, I guess, not to
get overly metaphysical.Projects just can vary so much.
When we get the physical bookand we kind of look back at the

(23:31):
amount of work that went intothat particular volume, it can
vary from a book that wasincredibly smooth and easy to
acquire. And you kind of barelyhad to touch it in a way.
I mean, because the authorreally knew what they're doing
and they're a good writer andthe reports were really
favorable, that kind of thing tothe opposite side of the
spectrum where the book tooktwenty years. Wait, what do I

(23:51):
have here? I literally sent thatcontract out maybe my third year
as an editorial assistant at thepress. That is twenty four years
in the making at the very least.I mean, at least in terms of my
involvement with it.
This is the Scenic Routebuilding Minnesota's North Shore
by Arnold Alanen andmagisterial, long time coming
and a very exciting book thathas been in my personal orbit as

(24:13):
an editor for fourteen years, Iwanna say. I wanna say I met
with Arne in 2010 in Madison.Think one particular aspect of
working in at least on thescholarly side of book
publishing is when a book firstcomes out, there's kind of what
the front list attention itgets. But with scholarly books,
what's really rewarding I thinkis the ones that turn into

(24:33):
perennials. I always call them,they're kind of like time
release capsules.
They sort of get slowly absorbedinto the kind of bloodstream of
intellectual thought. And thenthey just kind of continue to
sell on and on and on. And ofcourse, I've been working here
long enough where there'scertain books that just continue
to sell ten or fifteen yearsafter we've published them.
Being here as long as I have andeveryone else on this podcast,

(24:54):
it's really rewarding to seethose books that continue to be
engaged with, continue to betaught and continue to kind of
inform new generations ofscholars work. And it's maybe a
little bit different than howother publishers or trade
publishers might operate.

Mike (25:08):
In production, Pieter was talking about, you know, there's
this long tail that leads up todelivering the book to
production. Production isactually kind of lucky because
we have a beginning and we havean end. And then marketing will,
of course, has no end. I'mremembering some of the books
that I really enjoyed workingon. I'm a bit of a sci fi

(25:29):
fantasy horror nerd, and we havebooks that touch on that.
You know, we do this Godzillanovel, and I'm a big consumer of
horror novels and that sort ofthing. And we have books like
that, and they are so much funto work on. But one thing I
particularly enjoy is been ableto sort of touch on the work of
Flexible My Heroes. We publishthe memoir autobiography of

(25:51):
Samuel R. Delaney, Jr.
I got to work on that veryclosely, and I got to correspond
with him, which was something Iwas aware of him when I was 12
years old. He was this base onMount Rushmore, quite frankly,
for me. And here I was writingto him and getting responses,
which was great. Other booksthat I really enjoyed working on
are like the ones that likereally take off unexpectedly. I

(26:13):
edited Fred Moten's book for us.
That book is really importantand he's a big deal. I read him
in the New York Times now andagain. Or Timothy Morton's
Hyperobjects. I worked on thatone. And that also very
important book.
You don't see these thingscoming. Maybe in acquisitions
you do, but in production, it'sjust like, here comes some more
words to start grounding themthrough the machine. But I take

(26:33):
pride in having worked on thosethings and with those people.

Emily (26:37):
Yeah. You know, marketing is somewhat unique in that we
see everything and we work withevery author that comes through
the press. Each person in thedepartment has a different role
to play in bringing thatparticular author and book to
readers. One of the things thatI think is remarkable and it's
been really rewarding andprobably one of the main reasons

(26:57):
I'm still doing this where I amis just the incredible diversity
that the press publishes,whether it's topics or
approaches or fields orliterature or even types of
books, like how they'republished. We've done so many
different types of experimentalformats.
That's been exciting. It justcontinues to be exciting. You

(27:18):
know, it's just impossible toget bored when you're constantly
learning new things and meetingnew people who are interesting
and committed and passionateabout what they're doing. I
would say another aspect to itthat's really special for me is
when we've been able to workwith authors as their career
developed and really be a partof a long standing relationship

(27:40):
where we can watch that person'swork circulate in the world for
a long, long time and see theircareer change, their writing
change. One of the authors thatcomes to mind is Linda LeGarde
Grover, who we've beenpublishing for many years for
fiction and non creativenonfiction.
We really started off with, asthese things often do, with a

(28:00):
project that had some momentumor accolades behind it, we
really didn't know what shewould do next or how thing you
know, how things would develop.And here we are. I don't I don't
even know how many years later,maybe fifteen years later, you
know, with many books and justwonderful experiences.
Witnessing the longevity of whatwe do, you know, especially in
the culture today where thingsjust move super, super fast to

(28:22):
see how long and how prescientsome of the books have been and
how influential over the yearsin the discourse of culture on
many different levels is sorewarding. It's a special part
of being a part of something forso long and sticking to the idea
of the importance and value inbringing innovative new ideas

(28:45):
and voices into the publicsphere.
It is kind of like the bigpicture of how we show up on the
rough days.

Heather (28:53):
Yeah. Kind of like what Emily said, the work that we do
is cyclical. Like the books arealways coming, it never stops,
but every book is unique anddifferent. Part of what's
enjoyable for me is when ourauthors get to the point where
they're starting the marketingprocess, there's just sort of
this renewed sense of excitementabout like, Oh my gosh, my book
is really a real thing almost.And they get excited again and

(29:15):
they have lots of ideas.
For me as the publicity directorand person in charge of lots of
launch events, that's where Iget to see a lot of that
enthusiasm just come to reality.We've had some pretty amazing
launch events over the years andthey can be everything from a
quieter bookstore event tosomething pretty grandiose at

(29:37):
First Ave for RT Rybak's memoir.It's always a lot of fun and you
can just see the author's justsort of appreciation for that
moment. They're able to hold thebook in their hands and sign
their name in the book duringthe signing. I'm trying to think
like Jessie Diggins, you know,during the time of the pandemic

(29:58):
and we had to shift events tovirtual, she was just a pro and
able to run with it and ended updoing a workout with attendees,
during her launch event.
So you got to work out with apro Olympic athlete. All of
these things have sort of cometogether in different ways, but
it's kind of fun to see thatfinal level of excitement, but

(30:20):
really it's just the beginningand we keep building the
excitement from there. For me,my goal is always to try to
match the book to its perfectreader. As a publicist, I'm
combing through authorquestionnaires and talking with
authors and writing pitches and,essentially becoming like a
cheerleader, for lack of abetter term, for these books.
You know, there's so many booksout there, so many authors, and

(30:42):
to sort of make yourself seenand heard in the media scape is
no easy thing to do, but I stilllove doing it.
And when you finally do get thatbig hit that comes through, it's
so rewarding and you're just soexcited to share it with your
author. For every 10 no's or noresponses you get. And you might
get that one or two, you know,big hit. And then it just kind

(31:05):
of renews that excitement andlike the reasoning why you're
doing it. And because you'relike, I know somebody's going to
read that review.
I know somebody's going to seethis. They're going to be
excited about this book. They'regonna buy it. They're gonna talk
about our author. It's just sucha fulfilling line of work.

Erik A. (31:19):
Yeah, I think echoing everybody else, it's almost kind
of hard to answer something likethis because it's such a
windfall of memories andexperiences and meanings. And I
know early on books really feltlike books and they've kind of
stopped feeling like books to meand almost more like these weird
artifacts that come from justreally human work and connection
and people's lives. Therehappens to be this physical

(31:42):
entity that comes with it, butthe work just ends up kind of
becoming bigger than theartifact in a weird way, which I
know is maybe weird, but that'sfrom the working process. I just
have so many memories. I guessthe ones that I find myself just
coming to really quickly are theones that were hard, but hard
and really edifying and changingways, like personally changing

(32:04):
ways.
I think about all the dayswalking down the street to
Dudley Riggs' condo to sit athis table and edit with him. I
remember his book starts withhis memories of he used to be a
high wire act kid, like at fouryears old, he would be hundreds
of feet up in the air. Iremember he and his wife Pauline
boss lived on the Tenth Floor.Of a condo and I remember he and

(32:27):
I walking out onto the balcony Iforget how old Dudley was then
early 90s, and you know walkingwith a cane and we were sitting
staring over this precipice. Iremember him being like, I could
still get up on this railing andbalance if I wanted to.
And I was like, Dudley, I waslike, I believe you. He meant

(32:50):
it. He didn't do it, but hemeant it. So I just have a lot
of cherished memories there. Iremember for months and months
and months on end, every Tuesdaydriving south to Bruce Kramer's
condo to work with him and CathyWurzer on his book about ALS.
And then every Thursday of thesame week driving north to Lino

(33:10):
Lakes to sit with Zeke Caligiuriand work on his memoir. I just
remember the kind of emotionalgauntlet, but also gift of those
two narratives for months andmonths and months on end being a
part of those conversations. Andyou almost forget a book is
involved at that point becauseyou're just being so changed on
a personal level. I mean, Iremember what felt like my first

(33:32):
big risk was taking on the VidarSundstol translations.
And then just thinking of allthe great memories with Vidar of
sitting with Emily and Heatherafter an event eating bone
marrow at Surly, or I rememberlike being in the middle of a
downpour on an off ramp outsideChicago during Heartland Fall
Forum where someone had rearended me and Veeder. And so

(33:54):
we're standing in the pouringrain off of 55, trying to
comfort this young woman who'sjust so afraid and we're like,
it's fine. And I just rememberjust thinking how bizarre it was
to be sitting in the downpourwith Veeder or standing with Jay
Weiner and working on theinitial edits for Hy Berman's
book at his hospital bed on theuniversity or sitting in

(34:17):
Cornbread Harris's kitchen withAndrea Swensson and listening to
him play piano while we talkedabout the book. Looking over Bea
Ojakangas's shoulder and copyingher French bread recipe in her
kitchen, north of Duluth. It'san unending litany of memories
that make me so grateful forthis work. I forget that a book
is even involved sometimes. Andthen sometimes I forget a book

(34:41):
is involved by choice, but Ikid, not really.

Rachel (34:45):
Well, I'm not sure I want to go after Erik. Sort of
wax poetic about all the lovelyexperiences that he has had with
his authors and books over theyears. I've been able to
experience just a little bit ofthat with him and that's been
amazing and kind of what Idreamed about when I entered the
publishing profession. Ofcourse, as everyone has said,

(35:07):
you know, we've all been herelong enough that we've worked on
hundreds and hundreds andhundreds of books. And it can
sort of start to feel a bit likean assembly line after a while,
even though we're giving eachproject our attention in the
moment.
It just, they all sort of runtogether. And so like trying to
pick out particular books overthe years, as everyone has been

(35:28):
talking has proven to be achallenge for me. So I'll say
first of all, as a productionperson, my favorite books are
those books that are on time.That's like sort of the thing
that's always in the back of myhead as I'm working on projects
I have, I'm surrounded bycalendars. I want books to look
really good but I also wantbooks to be on time and so

(35:49):
marketing can take them and runand have fun as they sort of go
out into the world.
When I've had a particularlychallenging schedule and I'm
able to meet it, that feels verygratifying to me. Those are
memories that definitely stickin my head. Possibly a
controversial opinion, Iactually really like working
with first time authors. They'reso involved in every point of

(36:11):
the process. Often they're alsothe most gracious and the most
excited about every point in theproduction process.
The excitement, it's infectious.It reminds me of why the work we
do is so important. I actuallyalso enjoy complicated
production books. They candefinitely cause me lots of
headaches, but working at theUniversity of Minnesota Press

(36:34):
has allowed me the opportunity,because it isn't a giant
publisher, to really be on theground and learn how to solve
these problems through variouscover design issues or layout
printing. I've gone on photoshoots, just I've definitely
like learned on the job here.

(36:54):
And that has just been amazingand invaluable experience that I
can't imagine getting at a lotof other places. And so really
working on complicated books forthe first time and figuring them
out and problem solving them,those have a special place in my
memory. And then just lookingforward, we have started an
initiative to make a lot of ourebooks accessible. How we're

(37:18):
taking that sort of lookingforward and looking for new
audiences and looking to makeour books available to as many
people as possible. At everypoint along the way, we are
always looking forward and we'refinding ways to innovate and to
be at the forefront of ourfield.
And so that's just reallyexciting to be a part of and to

(37:38):
be able to be a leader in as weget to later points in our
career and using all theknowledge and experience that
we've acquired over the yearsand taking that and channeling
that together is just really,really exciting.

Emily (37:51):
Hear, hear, Rachel. That's really wonderfully said.

Maggie (37:55):
At this point in the conversation, I'd like to take a
moment to thank and to welcomesomeone who is in fact the first
person to appear on this verypodcast, episode number one.
Welcome.

Jason (38:07):
My name is Jason Wiedemann, and I'm editorial
director at the University ofMinnesota Press. I have been at
the press for twenty plus years.I don't recall off the top of my
head exactly how many years ithas been, so I just say twenty
plus at this point. I am one ofmany press staff members who

(38:29):
began as a student worker at thepress. I was an undergraduate at
the University of Minnesota inthe late 90s, living in
Minneapolis, studying Englishand cultural studies at the
University of Minnesota.
And at the time, I was workingfor the Minnesota Daily, which

(38:50):
is our campus newspaper. And Iwas working in the classifieds
department, which doesn't evenexist anymore. And my job was to
take classified ads and, placethem in the in the student
newspaper. At the time,journalism was undergoing a
radical transformation. And mycareer goals at the time were to

(39:15):
work in arts journalism inparticular.
And I realized that those kindsof jobs were going to be fewer
and fewer as the years go on. Atabout that time, a really good
friend of mine who is also anundergraduate had started a job
as a student worker at theUniversity of Minnesota Press.
He actually pitched the positionto me. It paid a little bit

(39:38):
better than other campus jobs,and it had very flexible hours,
which for a student is very,very important. I started
working at the press at a pointin my life where I was just
starting to pay attention to thespines of books.
Who was publishing the booksthat were changing my

(39:58):
perspective as a student,opening up the world to new
ideas? And I began to realizethat there were a group of
publishers called universitypresses that were doing some of
the most adventurous and mostinteresting publishing out there
in the world. At the time, I wastaking an undergraduate English

(40:19):
class, and we were assignedTerry Eagleton's Literary
Theory, second edition. And itkind of blew me away to discover
that the university press at myhome campus had published this
book. That's really where Istarted to pay attention and
really understanding howessential university presses

(40:43):
were to publish adventuroustranslations, new works of
theory, to publish challengingand controversial topics.
My first role as a studentworker was in the marketing
department. I did a lot offiling of clippings and sales
reports and publicityinformation. What impressed me

(41:06):
right away was the overwhelmingethos regarding the important
work that we were publishing.Certainly, were conversations
about sales potential, but mostof the conversations we had were
about the book and how deservingit was for publication. That it

(41:28):
wasn't just about focusing onincome and sales potential, but
more about does this bookdeserve to be published?
Does this book need to be out inthe world? When I graduated from
the university and could nolonger, you know, officially be
called a student worker, Ibasically begged folks to keep
me on in some capacity. I didn'twant to leave. I worked at the

(41:51):
front desk
for a long time
where I answered the phone. Iordered supplies and did the
mail every day. I dideventually, end up leaving, the
press at that time, and I workedfor a commercial publisher in
London for a brief period. Ifound the conversations at a
commercial press to be reallyfocused on, you know, income and

(42:15):
dollars coming in the door andwhat books or journals should we
focus on that will give us themost sales impact? I wanted to
get back to nonprofitpublishing, to conversations
that were about the ideas, theauthor, the impact on readers,
and not just the impact of bookson a press's bottom line.

(42:38):
So after my short stint incommercial publishing in The
United Kingdom, I moved back toMinnesota. You know, I was a
temp worker at Wells Fargo HomeMortgage, and I was scheduling
refinances. And I hated it. Itwas so awful. And I remember,
like, I didn't have a car.
I was biking to work and, like,someone stole my bike seat. So I

(43:00):
had to bike to work without aseat. Like, I was so poor. And
then I saw Robin in Uptown.

Maggie (43:06):
Quick producer interjection. Robin was a
digital projects manager and ITmanager at the University of
Minnesota Press for aboutfifteen years up until around
02/2012.

Jason (43:17):
She's like an editorial assistant just put in her notice
today. She's like, you shouldapply. And then I applied. I was
an editorial assistant forseveral years before becoming an
associate editor, where I splitmy time between assisting and
acquiring to becoming a fulltime editor, and then a senior
acquisitions editor. Andfinally, about ten years ago,

(43:40):
becoming editorial director ofthe press.
I do remember the first bookthat I acquired, Kathleen and
Christopher, and it was acollection of letters that
Christopher Isherwood wrote tohis mom, Kathleen. And since
then, I've gone on to acquire incinema media studies,
anthropology, geography,sociology, urban studies, native

(44:04):
and indigenous studies. Some ofthe most rewarding experiences
I've had have been within nativeand indigenous studies. I'm a
white resident of the state ofMinnesota and grew up with a
particular history of the stateand how it came to be and the
role of Indigenous peoples bothin the past and in the present

(44:27):
of the state. And acquiring inthat area has been incredibly
rewarding for me.
The press enjoys a very, verystrong reputation in Native and
Indigenous studies, both interms of scholarship that we
publish, but also in terms ofthe regional books that
contribute to a deeper, moreholistic, more accurate

(44:52):
representation of what thehistory of our state has been
and the role that native peoplehave played in this state and
its history. I feel a greatsense of responsibility and
trust when a native writerentrusts their words to me as an
editor. We have an enormousresponsibility as a press, even

(45:16):
more so in 2025 and beyond, toseek out diverse voices, to seek
out underrepresented voices, andto give those voices a space.
Over the years, I have hadnative studies authors teach me
surfing, rescue me frompotential tsunami warnings,

(45:40):
garden with me, and have me holdand and babysit their kids, from
time to time.

Maggie (45:46):
Yeah. Well, I've always appreciated your willingness to
just kind of dive in and becurious about and be a critical
thinker of new platforms andemerging platforms. I mentioned
you were the first person to beon this podcast. You also I
remember an early interview youdid with Paul Chaat Smith in the
office, and we recorded it andput it out on YouTube, and that

(46:07):
was one of the first times wedid something like that. You've
always kind of embraced ways ofcommunicating and storytelling,
I think.

Jason (46:15):
In some ways, I was just sort of following a general
sense of adventurousness at thepress. I've always been
encouraged as an editor here toexplore nontraditional avenues
for finding authors and bookprojects, to expand, my networks

(46:37):
through untraditional ways, toseek out authors not just from
academic spaces, but from nonacademic spaces as well, from
activist contexts orprofessional contexts. I found
social media to be an amazingtool. I've had great success
back in the day with usingTwitter as a tool to seek out

(47:00):
new authors writing onparticular topics. But a lot of
what I was doing, I think, wasfollowing the press's sort of
general sense.
We've always been a press thatlooks not just to a core
academic audience for our books,but seeks to find, you know,
interested smart readers who arebeyond the academy. The press

(47:25):
has always, I think, been aleader in drawing on new
technologies like podcasting,you know, like Twitter and
Instagram to promote our booksto a very broad audience.

Maggie (47:38):
Well, you very much, Jason, again from podcast
episode one and podcast episode100, and hopefully many more to
come. Next up, we will hear fromtwo people in charge of the
press one hundredth committee.

Eric L. (47:53):
Hello, audio land. I'm really happy to be here with my
colleague and good friend, LauraWestland. Laura, so glad to have
the opportunity to speak withyou today.

Laura (48:04):
Eric, I'm so glad to be here.

Eric L. (48:06):
We are here today kind of in our capacity as co chairs
of the Centennial PlanningCommittee at the press. It's
great to have the opportunity towork together on this project.
We don't always get to worktogether. So that's really cool.
I'm really glad to have thatchance.

Laura (48:24):
Yeah, and it's exciting to look through a hundred years
of history at the press and justsee how we've changed the vast
array of what we've publishedand the many, many interesting
people who've been involved withthe press and to put it together
to celebrate one hundred years.

Eric L. (48:42):
Yeah, absolutely. So I thought maybe we could start
talking a little bit about whowe are and what our roles are at
the So I'm Eric Lundgren. I'mthe outreach and development
manager at the press. Myposition, I think, is not one
that necessarily everyuniversity press has. One of my

(49:04):
primary responsibilities israising revenue for our mission.
We're a nonprofit press. We'realways aiming to break even.
But, you know, a lot of our alot of our books don't make
money. Sometimes they have a lotof special features like color
printing or for doingtranslation that that can get

(49:25):
very expensive. I write grants.
I work on fundraising campaigns.I work with our authors to get
someventions from theiruniversities to help us publish
the books as best we can and tokeep our prices reasonable.
That's important to a lot ofpeople here to keep them
accessible. And then in recentyears too, I've been working on

(49:49):
a lot of open access projects.We have this wonderful platform,
Manifold, which allows forenhanced digital publication of
scholarly monographs and allowsfor video, multimedia, maps, all
kinds of digital enhancements tothe books.
In addition to that, I work onsome translation grants. We work

(50:12):
with Norway, with with France,Japan are just a few examples of
the translation programs that wework with. It keeps it
interesting. Right? And Laura isthe managing editor and has been
the long time managing editor, Ishould say, of the press.
Laura, could you just tell us alittle bit about what a managing

(50:34):
editor does or what you do as amanaging editor?

Laura (50:37):
Sure. I have been the managing editor at the press for
twenty seven years, so you areright. It is a long time that
I've been in this position. Iwork primarily with our
freelance copy editors. I alsowork with the authors in the
writing and the editing of themanuscripts, and I work with

(50:58):
many of my colleagues here inreviewing new projects, making
plans for the books.
And, I work with the schedulesof our books, which is indeed a
very creative job. I tend tofocus on the, what we call the
trade and regional books. Somore for a general audience. Our

(51:22):
regional books can includeanything from Minnesota history
to, North Shore guidebooks, tocookbooks, to memoir to fiction
to poetry, our local authors.That's usually how we divide it
up.
But Mike and I work closelytogether. I will often work on

(51:43):
the architectural history andart history books. He's a big
fan of Godzilla and some of ourgame studies projects. We go
back and forth, but that'sprimarily scholarly and trade
and regional is how we divide itup. Well, and Eric, I'm
especially grateful for thegrants that you received for

(52:04):
translation projects.
The press has always had such astrong program. We were one of
the leading English translatorsof French literary theory for so
many years with our prominentseries, The Theory and, History
of Literature. And we continuenow to do translations of

(52:24):
Scandinavian, contemporaryScandinavian literature, and
we've translated Japaneseliterature. And it's really an
exciting and very consistentpart of our program at the
press. But these books do notoften sell extremely well.
So it's great to have thesubsidies to make them available
to people. So we always cheerwhen you bring in the subsidies

(52:47):
for our translations. Thank you.

Eric L. (52:49):
Thanks, Laura. I appreciate that. And I remember
when I first came to the press,like one day I was walking down
the street and I saw 12 elegantFrench women smoking cigarettes
out on the steps in front of theoffice. And I was like, man,
this place is cool. This is thisis really the stuff here.
You know? We were having coffeethe other day, and you shared

(53:13):
the story with me of how youfirst came to the press, which
is actually connected totranslations.

Laura (53:20):
Many, many people often aspire to work publishing, and
there are often far fewer jobsin publishing than the people
who would like to work in them.And I always emphasize to
people, it can be veryserendipitous how you find your
publishing job. And it certainlywas that way for me. I had just
finished a, graduate degree, amaster's in Spanish, aspiring to

(53:45):
be a translator. And, I was inMinneapolis and I contacted the
University of Minnesota Press tosee if there were any
opportunities for freelanceediting, and my call coincided
with a very large, bilingualanthology of Spanish poetry, and

(54:05):
the managing editor of the pressat that time did not have any
copy editors who knew Spanish.
So my call literally came in atthe exact right time, and I
started freelance copy editingwork for the press with that
project. And that eventually ledto my becoming the in house
copyeditor at the press, andthen a few years later, the

(54:28):
managing editor. My Spanishtranslation skills brought me to
the press, and I had no idea Iwould then stay for thirty
years. The great thing about thepress is how much we have
changed in that time. It'sreally been very dynamic.
Work here has frequently changedso much both in how we work and
what we publish.

Eric L. (54:50):
Absolutely. My case is a bit unique in that I've worked
two separate stints at thepress. Pretty much out of
college, I was working at aBorders bookshop. I was
processing remainder books atBorders and saw a posting for
the press. And I did two yearsat the press working as the
general office assistant.

(55:11):
I worked at the front desk andanswered the phone and sorted
the mail and made sure we hadpaper. Went down to the basement
every day, that was kind of myfavorite part. I would get to go
down to the basement and I'dtake the mail down there. We had
this old Pitney Bowes mailprocessing machine and I would
run everything through there.But that was all done in the

(55:34):
archives, which at that timewere stored in the basement of
the press offices.
While I was sorting the mail, Iwould kind of, you know,
sometimes poke around and lookat some of the old books or open
up one of the files. This wasnow about twenty years ago,
02/2001 to 02/2003, I think wasmy first stint at the press. And

(55:57):
then I went on to pursue an MFAin fiction, ended up publishing
a book called The Facades withOverlook Press in 2013, and
worked at libraries for about adecade, most of that time at the
St. Louis Public Library, andthen came back to Minneapolis in
2018. And like literally the dayafter I came back, there was

(56:22):
another job posting at theUniversity of Minnesota Press
for an outreach and developmentmanager.
It seemed kind of faded, so Iwent ahead and applied again.
And the director, Doug Armato,is the same from back in
02/2001. In addition to that, alot of the core staff, editorial

(56:43):
staff, contracts and permissionsmanager, several people in
production. The staff was veryfamiliar to me when I came back
fifteen years later, which iskind of remarkable. There is
that dynamism, but then there'salso a continuity in terms of
the people and the relationshipswithin the press.

Laura (57:06):
Yeah, the stability on our staff is remarkable. It also
makes it so wonderful to worktogether. We've done so many
books together. We know how toadapt to new kinds of
publishing. These long termprofessional relationships are
so beneficial.
And, many of us really love whatwe're doing. We are very

(57:30):
passionate about the books wepublish and the skills we're
using in our career, and it'swonderful to work in this
environment. You know, Eric,you're a writer, you've been a
librarian, you bring all thisinteresting background in other
areas of bookwork to the press,as do so many of the staff,
which makes this a reallyinteresting place to work.

Eric L. (57:53):
Yeah, absolutely. I do think that really says something
about how people feel about thepress, that they're staying for
twenty five, thirty years. Thatcontinuity in a way that allows
us to kind of take the chancesand do edgy projects where we're
you know, that are not firmly inour wheelhouse, you know, that
are kind of pushing theboundaries. And and not this

(58:16):
press has always had that kindof innovative spirit to it. Talk
about change.
I mean, you have seen a lot ofchange since you started. I
mean, the press was not even inits current building when you
started working. It sounded kindof bleak.

Laura (58:33):
Right, we were originally in a very old building on the
edge of campus where the,stadium, the new stadium now
stands. We have definitelyupgraded our facilities at the
Barrel House. Eric, when youwere talking about your first
position at the press, youmentioned that you had to make
sure that we had paper. I willfrequently not see paper until

(58:56):
I'm holding a final printedbook. You know, we don't have
paper manuscripts anymore.
We edit electronically. Wereview the proofs
electronically. Technology hasdefinitely changed how we work
and what we publish bypublishing ebooks and the work
on manifold that we do. And thatcertainly enhanced our sudden

(59:18):
dramatic work from home changein March 2020, we were able to
do that because we were able towork electronically all in our
own workplaces instead oftogether at the press. When I
started at the press thirtyyears ago, we were especially
renowned for our theory,critical theory, literary

(59:40):
theory.
We really were cutting edge inthat way. And we also had strong
programs in many academic areas,which we continue to do, but
we've expanded those in a waythat makes sense for the press.
When we take on a new area, ithas connections to what we
already published. So thesetransitions and expansions of

(01:00:03):
our list are very smooth andlogical. We're keeping the
identity of the press as we moveinto art history and
architectural history, nativeand indigenous studies.
These all have connections toprevious programs in which we've
published. Often, our books arevery interdisciplinary,

(01:00:26):
multidisciplinary. As we'vestarted series and sunsetted
series, kind of closed them out,and started new series, it still
all makes sense with the areasin which the University of
Minnesota Press publishes. And ahuge difference for me is how

(01:00:46):
we've expanded our regionalprogram. We do so many more
books now that are for generalreaders, local readers.
When I first started, it wouldbe a little hard to be able to
recommend to book groups whatyou could read from our list,
and now I can come up with verylong lists of excellent press

(01:01:07):
books for non academic bookclubs. We really have reached
out to a much broader audience,as well as maintaining our very
solid scholarly base.

Eric L. (01:01:18):
Well, for sure. I went over to, there was a launch
event for Andrea Swensson'sbook, Deeper Blues, with
legendary Minneapolis JazzMusician, Cornbread Harris. I
took my parents. They had JimmyJam, who's Cornbread's son. The
two of them were basicallyreconciled through the writing

(01:01:38):
of this book after, you know,being somewhat estranged for
several years and seeing the twoof them on stage together with
Andrea at this event.
And feeling that you're a partof this organization that is
helping to facilitate somethinglike this is just such a
heartwarming feeling. I mean,just one of the best events I've

(01:01:59):
ever gone to, period. Seeingthat as part of your work and
feeling like you're part of thatin some way is incredible. I
think we've conveyed a sense ofwhat's joyful and what keeps us
in our work at the press. Do youhave any projects that you
especially loved working on or amoment that you're especially

(01:02:21):
proud of?

Laura (01:02:23):
Sure. One project that really stands out is the book
Home, which was a collection ofphotographs by Minneapolis
Photographer Tom Arndt. Tom cameto the press with a big box of
photographs that he'd taken, andhe wanted to make a book. And
this is part of the publishingwork that I really love is

(01:02:47):
everything that goes into makinga book project, coming up with a
great title. Tom had all thesegreat photographs, but what do
we do with them?
What kind of text does the bookhave? We had an excellent
forward and an afterward. We hadTom comment about anecdotes,
really fascinating, interestinganecdotes involved in the taking

(01:03:11):
of some of these pictures. Thetiming was extremely
serendipitous in that theMinneapolis Institute of Arts
had an exhibition of Tom'sphotographs at the same time as
the book came out. Usually thetiming does not work that well.
But this also was a very specialpersonal project for me. Tom has

(01:03:31):
been a photographer here in theTwin Cities for over forty
years. So a lot of hisphotographs from the '60s and
the '70s were of the MinneapolisI remembered growing up. It was
wonderful to see thesephotographs of Pennippin Avenue
with the car dealerships andLake Street, you know, with all

(01:03:52):
the adult movie theaters, youknow, this is a different time
than it is now. And it waswonderful to see my memories
through his photographs.
So that's a very special projectfor me. Eric, what about you?

Eric L. (01:04:08):
Well, I should say, you know, I'm happy whenever we get
a grant. I feel like I'm makinga contribution. It makes me feel
good. Or, you know, I also workon scholarly book awards as
another part of my job. When anauthor requests nomination for
an award, we put it out thereand that comes back for them, I

(01:04:30):
feel really good, like I'vedelivered something for the
author.
So that makes me really happytoo. But the one project that
I'm especially proud of didn'tbring in any money for our
press. It was really a momentwhen we kind of gave some
content away, and this was avery stressful time in
Minneapolis history, which wasin 2020 after George Floyd's

(01:04:54):
murder. You know, the city wasliterally on fire, I think, at
the time that I sort of had asleepless night, you know,
essentially drunk dialed thesenior management of the press
the next day, having not sleptand wrote a rambling email
suggesting this idea for an openaccess book collection on racial

(01:05:19):
justice issues that eventuallybecame the Reading for Racial
Justice Project. This was acollection of ultimately about
30 books that we put on ourmanifold platform.
We made them open access, it wasfor a limited time, but it was
that entire summer after GeorgeFloyd was murdered here in
Minneapolis. For the staff whoworked on that, I mean, I should

(01:05:42):
say too, there was just a reallyreaffirming moment in terms of
how quickly, it was like withina week we pretty much had this
ready to go and we hadpermission from the twenty,
twenty five authors that wereinitially in that collection.
Our manifold specialist Terenceput all those projects up. We
had people in marketingpublicity who were, how are we

(01:06:04):
gonna frame this and stage this?And ultimately, I I think, you
know, for so many of the authorsthat participated as well that
allowed us to use their contentand put it out there to help
people understand that moment.
It was a project where we reallyresponded to an urgent crisis in
a powerful way.

Laura (01:06:24):
It was a time when we all wanted to do something, we
didn't know what to do, andthere was a need to make
relevant reading materialavailable to people. People
wanted it, they needed it, andwe had it, and we connected with
our audience. It was fabulous tobe a part of that.

Eric L. (01:06:43):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So now we are coming up to our
one hundredth year ofpublishing. We've been around
since 1925, founded by theRegents of the University in,
summer of nineteen twenty five.Our first director, Margaret
Harding, one of the very firstfemale press directors in the

(01:07:04):
country. So a real legacy there,including five directors over
that span of a hundred years andcountless people who have really
given their heart and theircreativity and their intellect
and have brought all thoseskills to this place and
contributed over the time.
It feels really lucky to be partof this. I certainly feel a

(01:07:28):
sense of responsibility to thosepredecessors or ancestors who
had set all this up and broughtus to this place.

Laura (01:07:36):
I agree. I mean, the press has had such a strong
foundation. Some of theessential books of Minnesota
history, Theodore Blegen'sHistory of Minnesota, Thomas
Sadler Roberts, Histories ofMinnesota. These are
foundational, books of Minnesotahistory and natural history. The

(01:07:58):
press stayed relevant throughouta century of very significant
change.
We change along with that. Andthat has kept us a very crucial
publisher for the state, for ourcountry, and even
internationally in what we workwith.

Eric L. (01:08:15):
Laura, it's been such a pleasure to speak with you
today. I'm so excited to beworking on some of these
centennial initiatives with you.Thanks so much for taking the
time to speak with me.

Laura (01:08:26):
Eric, thank you. It's wonderful to celebrate the
University of Minnesota Pressand its one hundred years.

Maggie (01:08:33):
So far on this episode, we have spoken with people
who've worked here for a goodchunk of their lives, and now we
are turning to some of
the press's newer faces. When I was in my early twenties,
I was working for a
daily newspaper as a copy editor and page designer.
And in times when I was lookingfor inspiration or to solve a
layout or a design problem,would take a break at a local

(01:08:53):
bookstore. Most often I wouldpick up a particular book and it
was called Salmila Architect,and it was this beautiful
quality book with gorgeousphotos and layout and
typography, I always came awaywith some new idea or a way to
solve a design problem. When ajob opening appeared at the
press, I initially didn't putthe two together like I was
already familiar with some ofthis publisher's list, but until

(01:09:14):
I started doing a littleresearch and found this book on
the press website, and that wasa really cool thing to find, a
really cool realization aboutpublishing and what it can do
and all that. So after I got thejob I celebrated with a piece of
red velvet cake at the cafe andby buying the copy of the book.
So anyway, with that, I'd liketo open this up to my colleagues
if you would tell us a bit abouthow you heard about the press or

(01:09:37):
what you knew about universitypublishing prior to working
here.

Emma (01:09:41):
Sure. Hi. So my name is Emma Saks. I've been at the
press, I think I just hit threeyears a couple weeks ago. Before
this, however, I came to thepress as a student, an undergrad
at the U of M, and I was astudent editorial assistant for
two years and then graduated,worked at some other positions,

(01:10:02):
and found my way back to thepress.
During undergrad, I was gettingdegrees in both English and
gender studies and sometimesfelt this fracture of having to
choose between one or the other.Is it social justice or is it
books? And over my timeinterning at Coffee House Press,
which is also local, and doingmy student work at the U of M

(01:10:25):
Press, I found that theUniversity of Minnesota Press
really blended those prioritiesso beautifully and that I didn't
feel I had to choose betweensocial justice and literature.
Obviously, I could work withauthors that are social justice
minded and writing aboutprogressive topics and new

(01:10:45):
genres and new forms. That'sreally what drew me to the press
initially as a student andhelped me gain that experience
and what brought me back manyyears later.

Anthony (01:10:56):
So I'm Anthony. I'm the journalist manager. I've been at
the press for two and a halfyears now. Before I got this
job, I was getting my PhD atIndiana University. So the way I
heard about the press was byreading a lot of books that the
press was putting out during myPhD program.
So I focused a lot on cinemastudies, and the history of

(01:11:19):
gender and sexuality, which areobviously strengths of the
press. I remember quoting atlength, Sheila Lyman's book on
Edith Wharton and collecting,James Cahill's book on
zoological surrealism. Myadviser, Joan Hawkins, let out a
book in February with the presscutting edge, so I knew about it
through her, obviously, and whatshe told me about it. And then

(01:11:42):
through my own work as well, Iactually had a paper accepted by
one of our journals, The MovingImage, before I joined the
press. So it was this kind ofodd thing where I got that
accepted, got the job offerhere, took over as journals
manager, and then produced myown article for the moving

(01:12:03):
image.
I promise Devon accepted thatbefore I got here, there was no
conflict of interest, but thatwas just a fun little quirk.
This job was really kind ofabout staying in this world of
academic thought for me that Iwas already enmeshed in during
my PhD study and kind ofsupporting that research, but in

(01:12:24):
a non faculty role when Idecided to transition out of
that kind of part of academia.

Carina (01:12:30):
Hi, my name is Carina Bolanos Lewen, and I am the
marketing and exhibits assistanthere at the press. I've also
just come up on three years, AndI was really seeking out
Minnesota at the point of my jobapplication. It was later 2021.
And I had worked at my undergradinstitution at their press,

(01:12:51):
which was tiny, and a reallygreat introduction to UP
publishing. But I also hadmajored in a science in society
or science and technologystudies program where I was
encountering Minnesota books.
And I remember going to alecture by Jesse LaCavalier on
his book, The Rule of Logistics,and using Deborah Cowen's Deadly

(01:13:12):
Life of Logistics for researchprojects, and otherwise just
noticing, Minnesota. They'redoing cool stuff. If the fact
that I majored in sciencetechnology studies as an
undergrad is an indication, I,like Emma, had a lot of kind of
competing interests and still doat all times academically and
otherwise. And I wassimultaneously doing internships

(01:13:34):
in communications at nonprofitorganizations. So when finally I
refreshed the jobs page atMinnesota and there was a
marketing assistant position, itfelt like it aligned really
beautifully.
At the time, I was living inSeattle and I had visited the
Twin Cities only once. Iremember at that time thinking,
maybe there'll be some reasonfor me to live here at some
point in my life. I just got akind of good vibe from it. And

(01:13:58):
so the fact that that all ofthat worked out for me still
feels kind of wild. In theexhibits role, I get to work
with all realms on our list, andI get to encounter our works out
there in the world atconferences.
I can think about having, like,communications experience
outside of publishing per se andbeing like, but how do I do

(01:14:21):
marketing in a way that feelslike it is for good? And for
products that I do actually feelenthusiastic about, we can
forget that our books areproducts. And I think that
marketing often feels like amisnomer in this context where
I'm genuinely trying to be like,hey, look at this awesome thing.

Alena (01:14:38):
Hi. I'm Alena Rivas, a publicity associate. So I am the
publicist for the press'sscholarly titles. And I also
work with award submissions forour trade titles. So I get to
essentially touch every bookthat we make, which is pretty
exciting.
When I had first graduated frommy grad program in publishing

(01:15:01):
from Portland State University,I had never even heard of the
University of Minnesota Press. Ihad come from a very small
regional trade publisher and Iwas an editorial. So to go to a
university press was notinitially what I had intended. I
saw an opening for a publicityassociate with the University of

(01:15:24):
Minnesota Press, and I thought,as I looked at the job
description, I thought, I knowhow to do all of those things.
So maybe I should just, youknow, apply and see what
happens.
I then found that it very muchaligned with my values and my
interests as a regionalpublisher, as a publisher that

(01:15:44):
is very socially conscious andfamous for the various programs
that we publish from indigenousstudies and, you know, cinema
and media studies. And we justwe have a long backlist of
incredible titles in all thehumanities. But what I didn't
know at the time was that wealso do trade and regional

(01:16:06):
general interest books,cookbooks, children's books. And
I didn't know university pressesdo that. The move to Minnesota
was a big change, and, I feltvery fortunate that the team
here at the press have been sowonderful.
We've been working togethercohesively and on my end, at
least, very happily, for thepast, year and four months.

Zack (01:16:31):
Yeah. Hi. My name is Zack Stewart. I'm the journals
production specialist. So Ihandle typesetting for our
journal titles as well as, someother things like producing,
promotional materials for someof our editorial teams and new
miscellaneous web graphics, thatsort of thing.
Always something fun andinteresting going on in the
journals department. I will havebeen here two years this coming

(01:16:55):
spring. I was fresh out ofgraduate school with, an MFA in
graphic design. When I joined, Iwas, you know, digging through a
lot of job listings in designand just really feeling kind of
dismayed at how it felt likethere were so few opportunities
to use design in a way that thatreally felt like it was doing
good in the world. I was veryfortunate that at that time, the

(01:17:17):
press was sort of getting toexpand its journals program.
And at that point, much likeAlena, I hadn't I wasn't really
particularly familiar with thepress. So I I started started
digging into it, I was reallyamazed at just the the breadth
of the titles in terms of itsits, books publishing. And also,
I was really fascinated by thewide range of subjects of the

(01:17:40):
journals, which the presspublishes. Like, for instance,
we have, you know, the movingimage, which I believe Anthony
alluded to earlier, which is alot of cinema studies, but we
also have a a number of titlesin indigenous studies and area
studies. One of my personalfavorites, we also have
Nicodemia as well, which is sortof cultural and anime studies.
And we also have our recentlyacquired, Markers, which is

(01:18:04):
going to be publishing,hopefully by the time that
you're hearing this, which is,the Association, for Gravestone
Studies. They have this thisreally fascinating journal of
delving into to gravestonestudies, And it's it's just
really amazing. This variety ofof things that the University of
Minnesota publishes. And it feltlike a place where I could
really use my design skills tohelp put, you know, something

(01:18:27):
powerful and something good outinto the world.

Eliza (01:18:31):
Hi, my name is Eliza Edwards, and I am the production
assistant for the University ofMinnesota Press. And my
connection to the press actuallystems from my childhood. So when
I was huddling around mychildhood living room in St.
Paul, Minnesota, there was abookshelf that is built in for
old 1920s house, which is one ofthe only bookshelves in my home

(01:18:53):
that reaches all the way to thefloor. So when I was young, I
sort of had access with my tinylittle hands to all of these
treasures that were on thisbookshelf.
Many of those books from myearliest memories of picking
things up and flipping throughpages that I didn't quite
understand were actuallyUniversity of Minnesota Press
books. So my mother is a publichistorian, and my father is an

(01:19:15):
earth sciences professor here atthe university. Between the two
of them, they had sort of amaster collection of things
related to local Minasertanhistory. My family has a long
term connection to Owl RoyalNational Park that stretches
back several generations. All ofthose aspects of their lives
sort of intertwined to give meas a really young child this

(01:19:36):
foundation in universitypublishing that I didn't quite
realize was there.
And like Emma, I alsoparticipated in a Coffeehouse
Press internship after graduatedfrom college. I was part of the
spring twenty twenty cohort,which ran into quite a few
complications as March 2020rolled around, of course, as
many of our lives, especially inthe publishing industry and also

(01:19:56):
across the board just becameupended and people had to re
envision their relationshipswith their trade. And I was also
at the time working at theuniversity in the libraries and
archives system. So I worked asan archives assistant at the
Cheddar Collection and GLBTStudies, which is the
university's LGBT historyarchives. So the university was
a familiar territory for me.

(01:20:18):
And so it was a natural switchto eventually reach towards
publishing. I have been here forabout three years at this point.
Corinna and I were a couple ofthe first hires after the hiring
freeze that was pandemicrelated. So we entered the
publishing world at a time ofgreat chaos, as many of this

(01:20:39):
cohort of new hires has. It'sbeen a fascinating time to be
able to put our skills to thetest and engage in a world that
is so quickly changing alongsideour colleagues who have so much
institutional memory to offer tothe work that we do.

Maggie (01:20:57):
Thank you. That was wonderful. And there's a lot of
things that surprise people evenin a predictable publishing
environment. But for most, ifnot all of you, having started
after we made a lot of changesduring COVID, it brings that
whole idea of surprise andchange in publishing a new
perspective. So yeah, I'd justlike to invite you if you want

(01:21:19):
to talk about something thatmaybe has been the most
surprising thing about your jobor something particularly
rewarding.

Emma (01:21:25):
Yeah, so there have been many rewarding aspects of my
role as an editorial assistant,specifically under the editor
Eric Anderson. He worksprimarily on our trade and
regional list. Something I foundsurprising that an academic
publisher does such a wide rangeof titles such as memoir,

(01:21:46):
fiction, non fiction, poetry,cookbooks, children's books, and
I found that really rewarding tobe able to work on such a
variety of titles with a varietyof authors and really build
relationships with them. Andjust seeing that in real time,
being able to work on a titlesuch as a picture book and see

(01:22:06):
the whole new process for whatgoes on, it's very different
than, you know, a novel or apoetry book. Being able to go to
the book launch at the indiebookstore just down the street
and talk to the community, talkto the authors, and see it out
in the world in a kid's hands isreally rewarding.
I also appreciate that althoughI do work on the trade and

(01:22:29):
regional titles, I get to seethe impact of our larger list of
books locally, nationally, andinternationally. I often think
of the press as I'm travelingabroad to visit my brother in
London and I'm at the bookstoresand I'm seeing U of M press
titles highlighted halfwayacross the world, that I'm
seeing those on the shelves, thebooksellers are recommending

(01:22:51):
them, and that feels reallypowerful and rewarding and be
able to feel like, wow. I'm aI'm a part of something.

Anthony (01:22:58):
So I would say, you know, working with the journals,
we don't do the editorialacceptance, but we work a lot
more on production once we bringan association on board. So it's
always interesting to see theway that editors will bring us
projects that speak to eachother. We've released a couple
of special we're in the processof releasing special issues on
Palestine from both criticalethnic studies and NAIS right

(01:23:22):
now, as well as just seeing,like, authors pop up around the
journals that they're notassigned to. Like, I know Terry
McCarty, who is one of the coauthors of JAIE, just, popped
up. I think it was in the newestissue of Maccazes, our review,
that we're putting intoproduction.
So it's always kind of, like,fun to see how the journals talk

(01:23:42):
to each other, I guess, becausewe're not really a part of the
acceptance process, and that'salways a fun surprise to see
that. And, you know, they tellus sometimes too. Like, Zach
referenced markers. And when wewere talking about acquiring
them, they talked to us a lotabout the Vernacular
Architecture Forum, whopublishes buildings and
landscapes with us. One of themost fun parts is kind of the

(01:24:06):
redesign, I would say, of anyjournal and taking a journal
aboard and kind of reworking itand giving them the first cover.
And usually, they're prettyhappy about what we send to
them, and they're pretty excitedabout moving forward with it.

Carina (01:24:22):
Yeah. I guess I'll speak to being hired from out of
state. I was very generouslygranted six months of remote
work to start off my time atUMP, which spared me relocating
from Seattle to Minnesota inNovember and deferred it to May.
That's an example of the type ofconscientiousness that I would
actually continue to find in myteam and leadership here. I

(01:24:43):
remain really impressed by howwelcomed I felt working remotely
and joining a group of peoplewho have been here for the most
part for a lot longer, right,than everyone who's in this
call.
It's so impressive, the workthat each of my colleagues
brings and the skills thatthey've honed, the ways that

(01:25:07):
they have come to cooperate witheach other and generate new
ideas and support each other inthat, especially in marketing.
There is this kind of rigor whenit comes to working with
existing systems, but alsocontinuing to kind of question
that really exists at the levelof our work each day in addition

(01:25:28):
to the kind of editorialpriorities that we have. But
I'll also say that I felt reallylucky. I got to join a press
that, like Emma, has thisimmense trade and regional
program, which I didn't knowabout coming from more coastal
zones beforehand. What a welcometo a new place.
Getting to get situated via ourbooks was just such a nice kind

(01:25:51):
of bonus. I was both surprisedand felt like, I have to learn
about this side of the program,but also I have to learn about
the place where I now live. Andso doing that deep dive was
really helpful to me.

Alena (01:26:02):
So I was new to scholarly publicity. I knew what publicity
was. I knew how to write apitch, and I knew how to, you
know, do market research toplace a book. I knew the skills
that required. I just didn'treally know the procedure.
And it turned out that my rolewas actually relatively new as
well. So when I came in, Ilearned how to build a media

(01:26:26):
list of journals, which I wasnot really that familiar with in
the beginning. There are so manyjournals and I, yeah, so, you
know, kind of getting thatfoundational knowledge first, I
was very supported and I wasalso encouraged to forge my own
path in this role and make itwhat I wanted it to be. I'm

(01:26:47):
making it a priority to get themost coverage for every book
that I possibly can. My firstbig hit, which will always be
near and dear to my heart, ishaving a Publisher's Weekly
review of Yves Dunbar's book,Monstrous Work and Radical
Satisfaction.
That's gonna just be like, Iwant that on my headstone and

(01:27:08):
then maybe it can be in markers,a story about it. We have so
much to offer. Our authors areamazing. Their work is so
important. I just feel veryfortunate to get the chance to
share these books with as a wideof an audience as possible.

Zack (01:27:30):
So as the typesetter for our journals, I'm typically kind
of about the last person in ourproduction pipeline to get all
the materials for the issue as Istart putting it together. So
it's always surprising andexciting to see what sort of
content is going in theseissues. NAIS, which is the the
journal of the Native Americanand Indigenous Studies
Association, they're puttingtogether, an a special issue on

(01:27:53):
Palestine, which I justrecently, you know, finished
typesetting and sending off tothe editorial team. That was
really fascinating to get to puttogether and sort of, you know,
I I get kind of a chance to sortof read through it a little bit
while I'm typesettingeverything. So, The Moving Image
recently put out a special issuecommemorating history of 16
millimeter film.
We recently acquired theInternational Journal of

(01:28:14):
Surrealism, and there have beenmultiple fascinating issues. So
it's really a privilege, andit's just plain exciting to see
what sort of content is gonnacome through. It feels like
anything could happen at anytime. It's also very satisfying
to get to put together some ofthese special issues or, like,
when whenever there's an issueof a journal, you can tell that
the the editors are, like,especially excited for it. It's

(01:28:37):
really satisfying to be able toput that together.
And also on the other end withour newer acquisitions, when we
get to sort of go through thisredesign process, it's like
Christmas morning. Right? Theythey get super excited when, you
know, we present like, here'sthe new interior that we've
commissioned or, you know,here's the design for the new
cover. It's so exciting to beable to find new ways to present

(01:29:00):
their content. It really is aprivilege to be able to work
with with such excitingeditorial teams and be able to
present engaging, exciting, andeven, you know, groundbreaking
content.

Eliza (01:29:12):
There are so many things that are surprising about my job
that it's definitely hard tonarrow it down to a select few.
To step into the world ofproduction for the first time is
definitely to be tasked withlearning an entirely new
language. And I think that'ssomething that I underestimated
stepping into this position inparticular, because I had a lot

(01:29:33):
of context for various aspectsof literary, scholarly, local
history sorts of worlds. But tobe able to engage in the
production side of this processwas something that I was doing
for the first time. Even thewords that I'm using on a daily
basis or the considerations ofthe things that I'm thinking
about are things that I hadnever before considered as just

(01:29:56):
a casual reader of content.
Paper stock and spine bulk andjust the various aspects of what
takes a book from a rawmanuscript into the creation
process of birthing it into aphysical object that you can
hold in your hands. And ofcourse, I mean, these days,
there's a lot of knittingtogether of digital and physical
worlds in positions like ours.The satisfaction of picking up a

(01:30:20):
physical book and bringing to ita deeper understanding of these
vibrant webs of collaboratorsthat bring their all to these
titles is something that bringsto me so much perspective to the
world that we live in and theways that we knowledge share
with each other. But thisposition overall has, number one
thing, transformed the way thatI interact with bookstores. When

(01:30:41):
I find myself going into abookstore these days, the first
thing that I do when I pick up abook is read the copyright page,
which is certainly not somethingthat I gave any attention to in
my previous life.
And be able to look on abookshelf and identify when
there's two separate printingsof the same book on the shelf
side by side because the paperstock has changed and the books

(01:31:02):
are now different sizes, forexample. There's all of these
sort of secret little thingsthat are sometimes
inconsequential and sometimesvery impactful that I start to
notice in my everyday life,which has been a really joyful
process. There are just so manymoments of synchronicity in this
job. In my previous life as anarchivist, I was working really

(01:31:22):
heavily with the initial stagesof book projects for our
researchers, working directlywith the raw materials that were
helping them conceptualize theirbook projects before they even
started writing something downon a page. And now I find myself
at the complete opposite end ofthat process, to the point where
there are books that I was ableto work on as the production

(01:31:46):
assistant for our departmentthat I had actually been a part
of the initial research processwhen I was working at archives
at the university with theTreader collection.
Working in the front end, Inever got to see the
accomplishments years down theline of what my researchers were
getting up to down in thecaverns of the University of

(01:32:08):
Minnesota archives. And to beable to participate in taking
all of the things that they haveanalyzed and brought together in
these sort of beautiful quiltsthat they then present to us to
turn into objects. It's justsuch a rewarding process. And I

(01:32:28):
feel very lucky to be able tohave seen sort of both ends of
that. I would love to give ashout out to our backlist
because a huge part of myposition is also working with
our reprints program.
And given the one hundredthanniversary that we're
celebrating this year, it'sreally special in my position to
be able to work with thethousands of books that we have

(01:32:49):
in print. For all of us to havea hand in tending to this
beautiful garden of thesethousands of books that the
University of Minnesota Presspublished over the years is
really humbling work, it'ssomething that I'm always
grateful to be a part of.

Maggie (01:33:04):
We've heard a lot today about the press's history, its
present, its reach, andcontributions to scholarship,
literature, education, the stateof Minnesota, and the world of
publishing. The press wouldn'tbe what it is today without its
leadership and the strategicthinking of its upper
management, some of whom weheard from earlier, many of whom
have been with the press for along time through monumental

(01:33:27):
societal and industry changes.And with that, I'd like to
welcome two very special guestshere.

Doug (01:33:33):
Hey. I'm Doug Armato. I'm director of the University of
Minnesota Press.

Susan (01:33:37):
I'm Susan Doerr, and I'm associate director at the
University of Minnesota Press.

Doug (01:33:42):
So Susan, we've worked together for a long time.

Susan (01:33:46):
We sure have. I think we've worked together now at the
press for twenty years. You'vebeen here longer than that, but
I joined twenty years ago thissummer. It's been quite a
journey.

Doug (01:33:57):
Well, remember when we first talked about your joining
the press, I had had sort of astandard executive assistant who
did clerical things and kept meorganized or attempted to keep
me organized. And when she leftand the position was open, we
talked about the position. And Ijust had a sense then in talking
to you that there were so manydifferent things you could do

(01:34:20):
and, you've done most of themand a few things I wasn't
expecting.

Susan (01:34:26):
There were some things I wasn't expecting either. I had
worked for a few differentpublishing companies here in the
Twin Cities prior to joiningMinnesota. And I'd also been a
bookseller. As I recall, youwanted to expand our journals
program. We had a couple ofjournals at the time, wanted to
expand our fundraising andoutreach.
The marketing department was intransformation. And I was at

(01:34:49):
that time, a marketing directorfor a book distribution company.
So I had some experience withthat. I remember my first day on
the job, you basically said,okay, here are the things we
want to do. Jump in.
I just started on something. AndI think I started with
fundraising subsidy activities.One of the very first grant

(01:35:11):
applications that I ever wrotewas here at the University of
Minnesota Press. And it was in02/2005 for a book called
Transgender Rights, whichintroduced legal issues and
civil rights issues fortransgender people to a broader
audience. It felt like reallyimportant work.
We got that grant. I was sopleased to have been a part of

(01:35:32):
making that book come into theworld. I'm both heartened that
it's still in print, but alsoreally sad that it's more
relevant than ever and neededmore than ever today. Doug, I'm
curious, you came to us fromanother university press, you've
been at Johns Hopkins UniversityPress. What was your path into
Minnesota?

Doug (01:35:51):
Well, when I was at Hopkins and I was at Hopkins for
ten years, I was the manager ofthe book publishing division. I
was having a casual conversationwith the editor in chief one one
night after work, and I said,you know, if I was actually
allowed to have sabbaticals, Iwould take a year off and read
all those books that Universityof Minnesota Press is bringing

(01:36:13):
out, all those cultural theorybooks. And he looked at me like
I was insane, but I wasabsolutely dead serious. It's
like, wow, that would just be,you know, so much fun to work in
a program like that. That sortof carried over when you talked
about transgender rights.
It was that same feeling that itwasn't just a book. It was going
to potentially change things, orthat was really needed. And I

(01:36:36):
think that's been so much at thecore of what we've tried to do
here over the years. A lot ofscholarly presses pick the areas
they publish, and then they justfind the books in those areas
that fit. With us, it's justkind of different because we're
always looking for the booksthat will change things.
We're used to shaking stuff up abit.

Susan (01:36:55):
One of the things that we always come back to is that our
books complicate arguments. Imean, they advance them too, but
they make people think in newdirections and harder sometimes.
That's really hard in a soundbite culture. You need to think
carefully and thoughtfully aboutthe arguments. It's hard to get,
you know, a three worddistillation or a one liner or

(01:37:17):
even a tagline when what it'sdoing is saying, this is
actually more complex thanyou've been discussing.
So here, read this argument andgo back and do the work, which I
find really exciting, but it'salso really tough. Not everyone
wants to do that.

Doug (01:37:33):
Yeah. You get the sense that there's an urge out there,
and especially lately, forsimple solutions to very complex
problems. And we're about theopposite thing. We're all about
complex solutions to reallyimportant problems, You know,
the things that you feel likeshould be simpler than they are,
and we're always trying to findthose nuances. And the phrase

(01:37:54):
that often comes into my headrelated to that, we don't really
solve the problems, we sort ofidentify the problems, and we
also identify the problems withthe solutions to those problems.
Because anything you do insociety always will create new
complexities and new problems.So the list can just keep moving

(01:38:14):
that way by just sort ofanalyzing the kinds of problems
that arise from too hastysolutions.

Susan (01:38:21):
The metaphor I always have, being someone who likes to
do fiber art and I'm learninghow to knit, it's like our books
make a tapestry of the culturein which we live. They weave
together these arguments andsometimes the colors don't
align. Like you've got a crazygreen over here and a crazy pink
over there, and they don'treally match, but they're all
part of that same tapestry ofour community. And whenever we

(01:38:43):
talk about list, we say it justsomehow makes sense, these books
coming together in our catalog.And I'm really curious for you,
Doug, what are some of the booksthat you really think about in
your time here at the press thatreally stand out for you?

Doug (01:38:59):
There's such a broad variety of them because it is in
its own way such a complicatedlist. I mean, there's books all
over the place in a lot of ways.But I've learned from so many of
them. I mean, the books I'veworked on, there's a book we
published called Against Purity,which was exactly against the
idea that you could come up witha morally acceptable way to
behave. And I was saying no,because every decision you make

(01:39:22):
complicates something else.
Just the world is too complex aplace. That book almost seemed
like defining a list in a lot ofways, of, you know, thinking in
a complicated way. And so I'malways interested in those books
that bring that about. But youknow, the other thing I really
love is there's five editorshere. I'm sort of a part time
editor.

(01:39:42):
And they're constantly bringingbooks that just kind of amaze or
surprise me, or things that Ihadn't thought about. You can
just sort of feel the listdeveloping. And Jason Weidemann,
you know, our colleague, at onepoint started bringing books
about like guts. I mean, aboutthe diversity of life that
exists within our bodies. Youknow, we're used to thinking

(01:40:04):
about biodiversity and we thinkabout, oh yeah, there's trees,
there's animals, there's ants,there's insects, and it's like,
well, there's also bacteria, youknow, and bacteria have their
own way of looking at the worldas well.
So that's sort of the kind ofbook when it comes, I just
think, wow, you know, of course.One year at a scholar

(01:40:25):
convention, a scholar came up tothe booth and was looking around
the stuff we published recentlyand said, I don't know exactly
why this list hangs together,but it does. There's something
in common all these books have.And it's like, well, that's
exactly how we kind of work. Youknow, we're always looking for
something a little bit new thatbuilds, you know, what you

(01:40:45):
called a tapestry.

Susan (01:40:47):
One of the areas that has been interesting to work on
because I have worked with ourjournals program, We started a
journal called Mechademia aboutthe fan arts and anime culture
and manga. And in my prior job,I had worked with publishers of
anime and manga. Well, guessmanga because anime is TV. It
was really fascinating to seescholarly study of something
that I had worked in, the realmaterials in a prior job. And

(01:41:10):
it's kind of fun for those of uswho've worked at several
publishing companies to see thelinkages between the presses
that we work at.
There's always threads. Youknow, another question I wanted
to ask you, Doug, because we area book publisher, but we're
university press. And one of thethings we talk about is
university presses being specialor having a niche within the
publishing community. You know,you've had a long career at

(01:41:32):
several presses. You've been thepresident of the association of
university presses.
What would you say distinguishesuniversity presses from other
publishers?

Doug (01:41:41):
I think a lot of it is this will sound glib, but it's
being driven by something otherthan money. Our commitment is to
advance scholarship and to infact be almost like the R and D
for society as a whole, thatwe're constantly looking at
society and saying, does thismake sense? Can this be
different? Is there another wayof doing this? I've had so many

(01:42:03):
experiences over the years ofworking in University Press
Publishing where someone hassaid, you know, wow, I went to
50 publishers with this book,and no one wanted to publish it.
None of them thought there wasan audience for it. And my sense
is sometimes that's exactly thereason you publish the book,
because there isn't an obviousaudience and you want to build
that audience. Or you just havea sense that a book will stand

(01:42:26):
out for that reason. I've workedwith authors when we talked
early on about a project, one inparticular called Alien
Phenomenology by the gamestheorist Ian Bogost. When he was
first telling me about it, I wasliterally just staring into,
like, open space while I was inthe phone thinking, what is he
talking about?
What is he getting at? But Ithought, well, you know, this

(01:42:50):
this is really interesting.Right after he signed the
contract, we had a phoneconversation. He said, you know,
I have no idea if this book isgonna sell at all, whether
anyone will wanna read thisbook. And I said, me neither.
That was where we went. Thatbook ended up being a success,
but also creating a littlesubfield of object oriented
ontology. And when I presentedit to the Salesforce at one of

(01:43:12):
our sales meetings, and they toowere just sort of looking at me
like, what? Know, objects havelike their own life, their own
like psychic life. And it'slike, oh, yeah, totally.
So it's getting that reaction isjust always a lot of fun. There
is a certain restlessness that Ireally like about the way we

(01:43:34):
publish at the University ofMinnesota Press. You know, an
important part of the press isthe Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory, a testthat we've been involved in
publishing since the early 50s,psychological diagnostic
testing. It became the dominanttest in its area, you know,
assessment in its area, sothat's really great. And

(01:43:55):
honestly, we could have justtreated it like an annuity and
just had year after year itbring in, you know, a good
little surplus that would, youknow, help keep things moving
and served a good audience.
But at one point a couple of theresearchers just sort of said,
you know, this could be better.I was really proud that we
accepted that and just of said,well, let's try and do that.

(01:44:16):
Let's change it up. Let'sconduct new research. Let's see
if there's a way to, you know,improve this instrument and
modernize it.
Because it was really dated, ithadn't been updated in like
fifty years or so. We boughtourselves as an operation, in a
way a lot of grief, becausepeople didn't really want it to
change. It had built its ownarea. But we thought, no, you

(01:44:38):
know, we're convinced by this.This seems like a better way to
do it.
And it's been a big success. Thenew version is, you know,
rapidly gaining a terrificreputation. And, so I think we
did the right thing.

Susan (01:44:50):
That's one of the things about the press. You know, we're
part of the Research andInnovation Office here at the
University of Minnesota. Youknow, something else that I
think has been reallyfascinating in my time at the
press is that we've gotten intothe ebook and digital publishing
world since 02/2005 or 02/2006,and it's evolved into even

(01:45:10):
publishing in new forms. So, youknow, back in 02/2006, we were
making PDFs and then we began tomake e pubs right around, what,
2010, '20 '11. And we've beenpublishing that and people,
that's what people can buy asour eBooks now in the bookstore
market and read in the librarymarket.
But I think it was in 2015 or2016, the Mellon Foundation did

(01:45:33):
a call for project proposals. Weput forward a project to create
a digital publishing platform tohelp bring university presses in
alignment with digitalhumanities projects that
scholars were doing that weremultimedia and multimodal, and
beyond just a book. Thatdeveloped into our publishing
platform Manifold that now islike a web based digital

(01:45:53):
publishing platform that can domore dynamic projects. And it's
been really fun and exciting tosee our team grow both in their
skills, but also change thenature of the projects that we
publish and the things that wecan do with the affordances of
the web.

Doug (01:46:08):
Yeah, I'm very proud of what we've done with digital
publishing, and just feelinglike we've sort of done it
almost in a theoretical way. Wesort of built it up from an
idea. We didn't do what everyoneelse was doing. We tried to
conceptualize and think itthrough almost like, you know, a
form of cultural or socialtheory, you know, just like,
what should this be?

Susan (01:46:28):
I remember when we were looking at ways to get into the
short book publishing spacearound 2018, '20 '19, where
university presses were asking,how can we publish shorter
forms? You and I had a lot ofconversations about what that
could be. Do we do a chapter ofa book? Do we do essays? And

(01:46:49):
Forerunners was the series thatcame out of those discussions.
And it was an idea. It was topublish in that gray literature
space where scholars reallydidn't have a home for formal
publication of those works. Theycould start a blog or write a
paper, but there was no realuniversity press path for that.
And Forerunners has been anincredible success. So that's

(01:47:10):
been an exciting little seriestoo that came from an idea.

Doug (01:47:14):
Yeah, it was definitely an idea to have books that were the
first word on a topic instead ofthe last. I mean, tendency of
university presses is, okay,this is all you need to know
about this. And then forward,was always like, this might be
something worth thinking about.You know, it's just a different
take on it. They've opened up alot of areas of discussion and
done really well.

(01:47:34):
I mean, you and I, Susan, talkedabout having worked together for
quite a while. But actually, thewhole management team here has
been really stable. A lot of ushave been here together for, you
know, over twenty years, almostlike a family and a stranger.
What's it sort of like havingthis kind of continuity?

Susan (01:47:51):
Oh my gosh, we know each other really well, which like
family is good and bad. One ofthe things that's been really
rewarding for me is justwatching people go through their
life changes. We've seen peopleget married. We've seen people
get divorced. We've seen peoplehave kids.
We've seen their kids go off tocollege. We're seeing each other
through the whole phase of ourlives, through illness and

(01:48:13):
death. Just really knowingpeople that well is something
that I don't think is as commonin today's working world as it
perhaps once was. I also thinkthat that stood us in good stead
during the COVID pandemic wheneverybody had to go home. We had
such a strong foundation ofconnection with one another,
that even though we were distantphysically, we had a lot of

(01:48:36):
trust and we had a lot ofexperience to understand the
decisions we were making duringa really difficult time.
We have tremendous respect foreach other. And that all goes
into the books that we acquiretoo. We let people take chances
on things that maybe in anotherpublishing house, we would say,

(01:48:56):
oh, it's probably not a goodfinancial decision. And maybe it
becomes a good financialdecision because we trusted each
other enough to take thoserisks.

Doug (01:49:05):
Yeah. I think there was a lot of design in that. The way
the press itself functions as akind of theory. It should be a
place where people really cametogether around what we were
publishing. We really wanted toavoid the sense which runs
through a lot of publishinghouses of this department is in
charge of this, you know, thisperson, you know, makes the
decisions.

(01:49:26):
You didn't wanna get that senseof it being like this constant
sparring for domination orwinning an argument or anything
like that. I mean, you know, wereally wanted it to be like a
circle of friends, you know,just sort of figuring out the
best way to this. And I'm reallyproud when I listen to some of
the other talks that are part ofthis Centennial podcast. It

(01:49:47):
really comes through thateveryone remembers like fun.
They remember having like goodtimes.
That's what we really try andencourage. Giving the designers,
you know, a lot of investmentand a lot of say over what the
books look like. Giving themarketing department a lot of
time to sort of figuring out,you know, where a book connects
and how it should be positionedvis a vis other books. It's like

(01:50:10):
all the way of everyone beingengaged in their work. And,
know, it's frankly just a funplace to work.

Susan (01:50:16):
You know, what I remember, another person you've
heard in this podcast, RachelMoeller, in our production
department, her laugh would justecho across the entire office,
and it happened a lot. And itjust lifted your spirits. It's
like, well, what hygiene for themeeting up to now? And, for
years, people would go to thriftshops and try to find paintings

(01:50:37):
for less than $5 and justrandomly hang them in people's
offices or around the office.The thing that always struck me
was how long it would take forpeople to notice that the
painting had changed.
There was a six fingeredcharacter holding a Rubik's cube
in one of them.

Doug (01:50:53):
There was the backwards centaur.

Susan (01:50:55):
Oh, the backwards centaur. Yeah. That one was
creepy. I remember one year wedid a scavenger hunt just around
where our office is located inDowntown Minneapolis. People got
really sweaty running reallyhard to try to be the first to
collect all the things.
Our group has always had a lotof fun together.

Doug (01:51:12):
Yeah. And I think it does come out in the work we do, that
creative approach. It's notreally an anything goes approach
because there's always peoplehere to sort of pull it back and
say, no, that like that, but Idon't think that's gonna work on
the bookstore shelves reallywell. But I also think the
ability to have a little bit ofplay, it brings out a lot of

(01:51:34):
creativity in the program, whichI think keeps it lively and
unexpected. That's been a greatelement of our success over
these years.
Here in the physical office,it's kind of eerie, but I can
walk up through the ranks of allthe books we've published in the
press library and like rememberlike every book. And they're

(01:51:54):
mostly good memories, not a %,but they're mostly like really,
really good memories.

Susan (01:52:00):
When I looked down our shelves, the kinds of things I
remember are little weird quirkslike, oh, we received funding
from this foundation for thatbook or the argument over the
cover.

Doug (01:52:11):
Yeah, there's a large element of reading the room.
It's been a little bit differentsince, you know, we went into
hybrid mode. We do have aculture of going with everyone
else's enthusiasm sometimes, youknow, and you say, well, this
person's enthusiastic. Maybethey're right. Being director
and being in a lot of meetings,scanning the Zoom screen, or

(01:52:32):
just trying to read the room andsay, who's looking at this point
like they'd really rather not dothis book?
Like who isn't excited? Whereshould we be adjusting things to
get that excitement back?Because we don't actually
publish in the grand scheme ofthings a lot of books. It's
about 100 a year, a little bitover 100 a year. You know, you
just want to make every onecount.

(01:52:53):
You want someone to feelenthusiastic about every one of
them.

Susan (01:52:57):
I remember when Erik Anderson, before he was an
editor, was in the sales andmarketing department. He was
finding projects and bringingthem forward for consideration
for publishing. And we werepublishing some of them. And I
thought that was really cool.Book ideas could really come
from anywhere on the team.
I remember one season, we keptnot choosing our production

(01:53:18):
director's favorite covers. Andin protest, he had them all
printed up and framed them andused them to decorate his wall.
All his favorite rejects went onhis office wall one season. And
I thought that's the bestprotest. They were great covers,
some of them, but they justweren't the ones that were going
to make it for those titles fordifferent reasons.

Doug (01:53:40):
That's a sign of the thing in general that we try and tease
things out and make thesecollective decisions so that the
decision science isn't somethingthat the head of the design
effort chose. It's like thingsthat other people gravitated
towards. And that happens a lot.I mean, it certainly happens
with me all the time. Sometimesthere'll be like a title of a
book, it's like, let me guessso.

(01:54:02):
It's sort of part of the funthat you just go with other
people's instincts a lot. I'vebeen proven wrong so many times
in the best way possible. We seea book succeed that I was very
tepid on, but there wasenthusiasm there. Sometimes it
comes from unexpected corners,and that makes a big difference
to me. We try and distribute thedecision making to a large group

(01:54:26):
of people.
Sometimes chaos really takes usa long way here. I think I do
drive some of my colleaguescrazy with my sort of tendency
towards finding the chaoticthread in our successes. We had
a big success last year, reallya tremendous success with the
first translation of theoriginal Godzilla novel. And I
just kept at opportune momentsreminding people that the

(01:54:49):
translator had done three booksthat lost us money, before this
one that made us a lot of money.And I said, that's exactly how
it's supposed to work.
That we did those books becausewe thought they were important.
And a lot of other universitypresses I've worked at, or
presses I've been to, theyalways say, no, we look at each
book on its own, and we see whatits contribution is to the

(01:55:11):
bottom line, and we try and notpublish that kind of book again
if it doesn't make us money. Andit's like, no, you're shorting
yourself because something elseis going to come out of that
relationship that has thepotential to be a big financial
success or an award winner. It'skind of a funny business that
way. It just works in a lot ofsubtleties.

(01:55:32):
And it isn't always a clear pathtowards what's going to be a
success and what isn't.

Susan (01:55:37):
There have been so many times over the years when we're
looking at new projects. We havea meeting every couple of weeks
called New Projects, and we lookat the books that are under
consideration by our editors andtalk about them. Many times over
the years, you know, an editorhas said, this book is important
or it fits our list for thisreason, but really, we're
looking two or three books downby this writer, and this will

(01:55:59):
help us get started. And sowe're going to nurture this
writer in the early part oftheir career because we want to
be with them in the later partof their career because the
editor saw something.

Doug (01:56:09):
You think of an author like Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, who's
Dean of Arts and Sciences atArizona State. He invented the
field of monster studies. Imean, literally came out of his
inspiration. And he's publishedlike 10 books with us, he's an
amazing scholar. But we actuallyacquired that book long before I
was here when he was a graduatestudent.
We took a chance on it andpublished it and got behind it.

(01:56:32):
And it was first an undergroundsuccess, then went on from that
to really help define a field.And he's published with us ever
since. But it really took thoseprior staffers here to sort of
look at that and say, this iscool. We should do this.

Susan (01:56:47):
I think that publishing is a profession with a certain
special set of skills that ourteam brings. It's kind of an
invisible thing. You see thebook and you see the author, but
there is a whole set of people,maybe 50 of them, maybe 20 of
them, but there's a lot ofpeople that touch a book between
the author and the reader.

Doug (01:57:06):
One of the things I love hearing the most, and I hear it
all the time, is it's just sogreat to publish with you guys.
Everyone was just so involvedand engaged. And that just
doesn't happen to a lot ofpublishers. And we've been
really lucky for the people wehave working here who bring a
lot of their own creativity intothese projects. This press has

(01:57:30):
really succeeded on thecollective creativity and
commitment of all the people whowork here.
It's a tremendous thing to beable to take some responsibility
for.

Susan (01:57:41):
Well, for the hundred years that the press has been
around, we've published somepretty great books. In 1928, I
think it was, we published abook called From Prunes to
Pancakes, which was about dentalhygiene. We've come a long way.
But what's in our future?

Doug (01:57:56):
Funny you should say that because, you know this, but for
a long time I was the editor fordigital culture at the press.
And it was specifically becauseI wanted, you know, as director
to be able to look into theimmediate future and see what
was coming at us. I mean, it wasreally just a self protective
activity. You know, I do feelthat with a lot of the trends in

(01:58:18):
higher education and in booksright now, you know, what's
going to happen is that at onetime there was that old saying,
you know, publish or perish,that all academics had to
publish, that there was thisimperative. And I think that's
really fading.
I think what you're going to getis that we're going to be here
for people who really want towrite. There's a lot of people

(01:58:39):
who had to write their sort ofrequired tenure books, their
first academic books, and didn'tenjoy it and didn't like it. And
you know, it was painful tothem. It took them much longer
than they wanted it to. But thenthere's other authors who just
are always ready to go onanother project, and they're
always excited.
And I think that that's thefuture of the work we do. Being

(01:59:01):
here for the people who reallywant to write, really want to be
involved in the community ofauthorship, who are just really
jazzed by seeing that objectthat came out of their long
hours of research and thinking.I think we're going to turn a
little bit more towards beingoppressed, not just for the good
scholarship, but for thecommitted scholarly writer.

Susan (01:59:23):
I think the joy of seeing the actual physical book, every
time one passes through myhands, I'm just like, oh, here
it is. It's present to see thisbeautiful object. I think that's
going to persist that object,especially as I see what's
happening digitally in ourworld. Ebooks are a fair, very
precarious medium that can beeasily erased and they can be

(01:59:45):
easily distributed, but they canbe easily disappeared as well. I
see print persisting for a verylong time, and we're here for
it.
I'm excited to be a part ofthat.

Doug (01:59:56):
We need to be here for it. I mean, I think that's really
what it comes down to, for theauthors, but also for the
readers and the students, andthe customers, it's being part
of that ecology. We'll keepchanging with the markets, the
times, and market demands. Andwhen there's a new digital
format out there, we'llparticipate in it. We'll get it

(02:00:16):
out there.
But I do think, yeah, keepingthis print object going,
something people can hold intheir hands and see on their
shelves and can become atangible part of their lives,
it's important.

Susan (02:00:26):
It's foundational to who we are, isn't it? We're
publishers, but we're readersfirst.

Doug (02:00:31):
Yeah.

Maggie (02:00:33):
I want to thank everyone I work with for giving up their
time and energy to talk witheach other today. I want to
thank everyone out therelistening for your interest and
attention and support for thepress. Thank you. As part of our
one hundredth anniversary, wehave more special content and
events to come, all of whichwill be updated at
z.umn.edu/ump100. Thanks againand we look forward to many more

(02:00:59):
wonderful years to come.

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