T116.
Telling Tales (& Tankas) Out of School: University Presses Seeking Creative Work
Thursday, March 24, 2022
9:00 am to 10:15 am
Most University Presses (UPs) can’t bestow six-figure advances, fly authors to events around the globe, or dedicate months to building media buzz, but because they aren’t profit-driven, UPs take risks and champion voices other houses may overlook. As a result, their creative titles regularly win awards, break conventions, and enrich the literary conversation. The directors and editors on this panel will discuss the many benefits of publishing with UPs as well as share manuscript wish lists.
Participants
Katie Cortese is the author of Girl Power and Other Short-Short Stories and Make Way for Her and Other Stories. Her work recently appeared in Indiana Review, Wigleaf, Animal, and elsewhere. She teaches at Texas Tech University, and she is the fiction editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.
Lisa Bayer is director of the University of Georgia Press, where she launched the Crux creative nonfiction series and secured Roxane Gay as current judge of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her publishing career spans thirty years and began with a paid internship.
Courtney Ochsner is an associate acquisitions editor at the University of Nebraska Press, where she acquires trade creative works and oversees their series-based poetry program. She has worked in scholarly publishing since 2009.
Jim McCoy is the director of the University of Iowa Press. He has worked in the book world since 1992 for Waterstone's, the University of Chicago Press, and the University of Iowa Press. He received his BA in English from Indiana University.
Parneshia Jones is the author of Vessel: Poems, winner of the Midwest Book Award. She is recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and the Aquarius Press Legacy Award. Jones serves as director at Northwestern University Press.
