by ewestlak on May 15, 2012
Congratulations to Sara Fitzgerald on winning an Independent Publisher Book Award for Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates. The biography of Peterson, who was one of the highest-ranking women in the Republican Party, was awarded the Bronze Medallion in the category of Best Great Lakes Regional Non-Fiction.
Independent Publisher Book Awards are bestowed with the intention of increasing awareness of university, independent, and self-published titles. You can find more information about the IPPY Awards here, and see the full list of 2012 IPPY Award winners here.
by ewestlak on May 11, 2012
This month, the University of Michigan Press is releasing Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz, by Daniel Stein. The first comprehensive analysis of Louis Armstrong’s autobiographical writings and their relation to his performances, the book offers Armstrong fans and music scholars a new look at the legend and his craft. Music Is My Life arrives on the heels of an exciting Armstrong-rleated revelation: Recently, CBS News reported that a recording of Armstrong’s last public trumpet performance had been discovered. Wynton Marsalis described his reaction to the performance, which was recorded by CBS in 1971 at the National Press Club in Washington months before Armstrong passed away. “I was shocked by the energy and vigor of his playing….And I was also heartened by the type of love and warmth that I felt coming out of the room,” Marsalis said. He went on to explain why “The Boy from New Orleans” was his favorite track on the recording, saying, “He takes you through his whole history. He starts with him being born in Jane Alley in dire poverty. And then him developing his trumpet playing and wanting the neighborhood to be proud of him.”
Fans interested in learning more about the connection between Armstrong’s life story and his performances will appreciate Stein’s analysis. To watch the CBS News video about the recently unearthed recording, click here.
by Shaun Manning on May 10, 2012
Sean Cahill, co-author with Jason Cianciotto of LGBT Youth in America’s Schools, wrote Tuesday in the Huffington Post about a potential new treatment for HIV/AIDS currently under consideration by the Food and Drug Administration. Describing the treatment, known as PrEP, as “a potential game-changer,” Cahill wrote, “We are hopeful that the full dossier of submitted PrEP research, based on multiple clinical trials with a number of different populations vulnerable to HIV, can lead to a responsible regulatory and marketing plan that allows for safe use in the populations that may benefit most from this innovative development.” He noted that PrEP works as a preventative treatment, much as visitors to some African countries take malarial drugs to stave off illness. With FDA approval, Cahill said, “health programs and individuals will have improved choices to address one of the administration’s domestic health priorities, and save lives.”
For the full article, visit the Huffington Post. Cahill’s latest book, LGBT Youth in America’s Schools, is available now, as is his previous U-M Press title, Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families (2006).
by Shaun Manning on May 9, 2012
Maurice Sendak (photo: Federico Novaro/flickr cc)
Maurice Sendak, the renowned children’s book author best known for Where the Wild Things Are, passed away Tuesday morning at the age of 83. On a day that included many remembrances and tributes across the literary world, U-M Press author Ellen Handler Spitz (Illuminating Childhood) was a guest on NPR’s Madeleine Brand Show to speak about Sendak’s life and work.
“It’s hard to think of anyone else, any other American, who did more for children’s literature,” Spitz said on NPR. “Maurice Sendak had an uncanny way of seeing into a child’s private world, a child’s world of fantasy. But I think what I find most important about his legacy is that he was able to create books and characters who captured the way every child at some point feels alone, feels misunderstood, or neglected, or misperceived, or overlooked. Even the most loved child feels that from time to time, and Maurice Sendak was able to capture that in his books.”
Spitz also wrote Sendak’s obituary for The New Republic, where she is the children’s book editor.
For the full NPR interview, including a clip of President Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are, click here. For the TNR article, click here.
by ewestlak on April 27, 2012
Tomorrow evening the Library of Michigan will host the “Night for Notables,” an event honoring the authors of this year’s Michigan Notable Books. Here, Sara Fitzgerald, author of Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates, a Michigan Notable Book of 2012, reflects on the value of libraries.
This week, I’m preparing to head back to Michigan for the Library of Michigan’s Night for Notables, recognizing the authors of the 20 books that were recognized as Michigan Notable Books of 2012. Through the Library of Michigan Foundation, support is also provided for the authors to make appearances at libraries around the state. And as I ready my remarks and my Power Point presentations, I find myself reflecting on the enduring magic of libraries, and the important role they continue to play in encouraging both reading and writing—two skills that are critical to preserving a democratic society.
I can still remember the school library at Bentley Elementary School outside of Flint, Michigan, a room that was probably no larger than 100 square feet. I remember the hand-written letter from Laura Ingalls Wilder to my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson, and how Mrs. Anderson’s oral reading got me hooked on that series a half-century ago. I can remember gravitating to the biographies of the mid-century American heroines, Helen Keller, Betsy Ross and Amelia Earhart.
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by Shaun Manning on April 26, 2012
Judith Pascoe, author of The Sarah Siddons Audio Files, dedicated a recent column in The Chronicle of Higher Education to the sometimes vexing subject of indexing, in particular the question of whether authors should index their own books or hire a professional.
“I had plenty of time to ponder the unsung heroism of indexers when I was finishing my latest book,” Pascoe writes. “I was overcome with thoughts of doom that Nancy Mulvany, author of Indexing Books, attributes to two factors that plague self-indexing authors: general fatigue and too much self-involvement. ‘Intense involvement with one’s book,’ Mulvany writes, ‘can make it very difficult to anticipate the index user’s needs accurately.’”
Pascoe describes delving into the different styles of indexes and indexing, and reading through Jan Wright’s award-winning index of Real World Adobe InDesign CS3. “The book’s index was not quite as scintillating as I had hoped, but I did catch frequent glimpses of Jan Wright’s sense of humor, for example, in her use of the catchphrase ‘accursed files’ as an index entry directing the reader to a page discussing QuarkXPress documents that InDesign has trouble converting.”
For the full essay–with a surprise ending–visit the Chronicle of Higher Education.
by Shaun Manning on April 17, 2012
Judith Pascoe, author of The Sarah Siddons Audio Files: Romanticism and the Lost Voice, has been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to support her current research on “Wuthering Heights in Japan.” Guggenheim Fellows are selected in the midst of an already-exceptional career in an effort to promote further important and promising research in their fields. Dr. Pascoe was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in the the Creative Arts – General Nonfiction category, and her research topic emerged as a result of a recent tenure as a Fulbright Lecturer in Japan.
For more information on the research Dr. Pascoe will undertake during her Guggenheim Fellowship, visit her page on the Guggenheim Foundation site.
by Shaun Manning on April 16, 2012
Ellen Handler Spitz, whose Illuminating Childhood: Portraits in Fiction, Film, and Drama is now available in paperback, dedicated her latest column in the New Republic to reflecting on some of the best authors of children’s literature in India. At a recent conference at Ravenshaw University, Cuttick, in the Odisha province, Spitz discovered Raja Mohanty’s exquisitely-produced The Enigma of Karma, a hand-crafted and lavishly illustrated volume of about 2o pages telling the story of Ramu and Shyamu , brothers whose actions inadvertently change their fates. Spitz also praised Deepa Agarwal’s latest collection, Folk Tales of Uttarakhand. Agarwal and Mohanty, she said, represent a pushing back against the simple, utilitarian–and English-language–approach to children’s literature that is prevalent in India. “Although the government of this vast nation recognizes twenty-two official languages, its children go to schools where English is spoken, written, and read,” she writes, leading to a publishing program that focuses on the same. Nevertheless, Spitz says, “a number of gifted Indian writers and artists buck this tide to produce marvelous books, and it would be a boon to make them available to American children.”
Read the whole article, with some fantastic descriptions of the books under review, at The New Republic.
by ewestlak on April 4, 2012
Peter Jeffreys has earned a major translation award from the Greek Ministry of Culture for Selected Prose Works (2010), a collection of prose pieces by acclaimed poet C. P. Cavafy published by the University of Michigan Press.
While Cavafy’s poems have been widely translated, prior to the publication of Selected Prose Works very few of his prose pieces had been printed. In fact, of the forty pieces Jeffreys includes in the book, only thirteen had previously appeared in print, and only a handful of those had ever appeared in English. Comprised of essays, “prose poems,” short stories, self-assessments, and considerations of other poets, Selected Prose Works sheds new light on a well-known figure who is arguably the most important modern poet of Greece and Greek culture.
(Cover image copyright © David Levine)
by Shaun Manning on March 30, 2012
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