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Letter from the Director

Darrin Pratt HeadshotIn 2018–2019, the University Press of Colorado and Utah State University Press produced forty-nine new titles and editions in the fields of anthropology, composition, folklore, history, and natural history. Two of our publications won awards—the MLA's Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize (Crossing Divides) and the Brian McConnell Book Award from the Society for Contemporary Legend Research (Legend Tripping), and another three were recognized in award competitions. Those recognitions include an honorable mention for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society First Book Award (Distant Islands), an honorable mention for the New England Council of Latin American Studies Marysa Navarro Best Book Prize (Land, Politics, and Memory in Five Nija’ib’ K’iche’ Títulos), and third place in the Book of the Year Awards in Nursing Education/Continuing Education/Professional Development from the American Journal of Nursing (Unitary Caring Science). We also copublished On Being Maya and Getting By (IMS Studies on Culture and Society Series) with the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies at the University of Albany.

In addition, we also published, copublished, or distributed other important publications from member faculty and departments. Faculty publications included Legend Tripping (Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University), Remembering Lucile (Polly E. Bugros McLean, University of Colorado Boulder), Rhetoric, Technology, and the Virtues (Jared S. Colton, Utah State University), Slender Man is Coming (Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University), and The Once and Future Silver Queen of the Rockies (Duane A. Smith, Fort Lewis College). We also copublished the following titles with the WAC Clearinghouse:

#writing series

Network Sense

Across the Disciplines series

What Is College Reading?

Perspectives on Writing series

Composing Feminist Interventions

Contemporary Perspectives on Cognition and Writing

The Memoir of Ednah Shepard Thomas

Social Writing/Social Media

Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity

The Writing Studio Sampler

Practices & Possibilities series

A Writer's Guide to Mindful Reading

The CSU Open Press's Network Sense: Methods for Visualizing a Discipline by Derek N. Mueller also won the 2019 CCCC Research Impact Award.

Finally, we distributed Dread and Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World for the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Transitions and Transformations (Volume 7, Manifest West series) for Western Press Books at Western State Colorado University as well as the following titles from the Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University:

Furthest Ecology (Mountain West Poetry Series)

The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter (2018 Colorado Prize for Poetry)

During fiscal year 2017–2018 we raised $295,000 in contributed revenue from a combination of member dues, title subsidies, and individual donations. We also increased the balance of our endowment fund with The Denver Foundation by 26 percent to $77,000. We still have some way to go before meeting our near-term goal of raising $250,000 before we start using earnings and interest for operations, but raising funds annually for the endowment, however modest the amount, is important to the long-term sustainability of our publishing operation. 

University Press of Colorado | Utah State University Press submitted our first title—The Rain God's Rebellion: The Cultural Basis of a Nahua Insurgency by James M. Taggert—to the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, a Mellon-funded initiative to publish open digital editions of high-quality books from nineteen university presses in the field of history. Harnessing the editorial, design, and production expertise of Longleaf Services, a not-for-profit publishing services provider owned by the University of North Carolina Press, and the University of California Press's innovative editorial platform, Editoria, this pilot is an opportunity to explore how open digital editions can enhance discoverability and engagement of original scholarship by readers across the globe—while maintaining the high standards of peer review and publication that are integral to university press publishing.

—Darrin Pratt, Director

More in this category: 2018–2019 Award Winners »

University Press of Colorado University of Alaska Press Utah State University Press University of Wyoming Press