Les Phillabaum will retire on January 31 from his 28-year directorship of Louisiana State University Press. Only the fifth director of the 47-year-old press, Phillabaum expanded yearly title output from 30 to 80; increased staff from 18 to 35; and grew annual sales from $15,000 to $3 million.
Among the more than 200 award-winners published under his helm is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the first for a university press in that category. To recognize his achievements as press director, university chancellor Mark Emmert has appointed Phillabaum director emeritus, and in April, the Fellowship of Southern Writers will induct the New York State native and Penn State University graduate as an honorary member for "his service to the cause of Southern literature." Under Phillabaum's direction, LSU Press developed strong lists in areas ranging from the South's history, literature and politics to poetry and African-American studies. He also launched the well-received Voices of the South series to revive contemporary fiction classics by well-known Southern authors in trade paperback.
Phillabaum's 40-year career dovetails with what he describes as "the golden age of university press publishing." After beginning as a Penn State University Press manuscript editor, he spent seven years as UNC Press's editor-in-chief before joining Baton Rouge—based LSU in 1970 as associate director and editor-in-chief. A member of the Association of American University Presses' board of directors from 1978 to 1980 and from 1983 to 1986, he was elected president in 1985.
Phillabaum noted that university presses now face "different challenges" in a "much changed publishing climate," and told PW, "it's a good time for me to be leaving." But he also thinks his yet-unnamed successor will inherit a sound structure to build on. "When I became director, I realized we had to grow in order to take on such big projects as the Encyclopedia of Southern History and History of Southern Literature. I didn't want to get so large, however, that the staff would lose a personal involvement with each book we published."
Associate director and business manager William Bossier will serve as interim director until the university's search committee finds Phillabaum's successor. The committee hired Bert Davis Executive Search in New York.
