Located in Fayetteville, Ark., a city known as an academic hub and for its innovative spirit, the University of Arkansas Press was founded in 1980 by the historian Willard Gatewood and the poet Miller Williams, who was named its inaugural director. In 1981, the press published its first books, including The Governors of Arkansas: Essays in Political Biography edited by Timothy P. Donovan and Willard B. Gatewood Jr. and In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist. Now led by Mike Bieker, the press advances the mission of the University of Arkansas by publishing peer-reviewed scholarship and literature of enduring value. The editors curate a list of books by authors of diverse backgrounds who write for specialty as well as general audiences in Arkansas and throughout the world.
Poetry and Arkansas history are cornerstones of the University of Arkansas Press list. The press publishes poetry through its Miller Williams Poetry Prize, which is edited by Patricia Smith. Other specialty areas of note include African American studies, art and architecture, Arkansas and regional history, food studies, and sports studies. Among the press’s most successful releases to date is former poet laureate Billy Collins’s first book, The Apple That Astonished Paris, first published in 1988. In 1986, the press reprinted Daisy Bates’s impactful memoir of the 1957 Little Rock Central High School crisis, The Long Shadow of Little Rock; the book, first released in 1962, “remains in print to inform and enlighten subsequent generations about the struggle for freedom,” the press says.
There’s also Blood in Their Eyes, a history of the Elaine, Ark., race massacre of 1919, by Grif Stockley, first published by the press in 2001 and revised by Guy Lancaster and Brian Mitchell in 2020. This important book brought renewed attention to the Elaine massacre and “sparked valuable new studies on racial violence and exploitation in Arkansas and beyond.” Finally, there’s the two-volume electronic textbook Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History, which features nearly two hundred primary documents that showcase aspects of U.S. history from the period before European contact through the 21st century.
The press’s diverse catalogue of books reflects this year’s press week theme of #StepUP in myriad ways. Titles include From Blue to Red: The Rise of the GOP in Arkansas by John C. Davis, which explores the shift in the balance of power in Arkansas, the last remaining state in the “solid South” once held by Democrats; Umbilical Discord by the Palestinian Syrian writer Rawand Mustafa; and Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability edited by Carole Counihan and Susanne Højlund, which explores how chefs around the world approach culinary sustainability in highly unstable times.
Looking ahead to 2025, the press is excited to publish The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford: A Biography by James McWilliams, the story of the tumultuous life of a prolific Southern poet who has, despite his flash of popularity in the early 1970s, skirted under the radar of popular opinion. Also forthcoming is Sleeping the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora edited by Holly Mason Badra, a collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by contemporary Kurdish women and nonbinary writers.
