{"id":29,"date":"2020-11-27T16:55:21","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T21:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/?page_id=29"},"modified":"2025-12-10T16:32:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:32:41","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/about-us\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Miami University Press publishes two to three books a year: poetry and poetry in translation, novellas and short fiction, and books about Miami University history and conferences.
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We regret that, due to limited staff, we are unable to read or respond to unsolicited manuscripts or queries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Beginning in 1992, Miami University Press brought out two books of poems each year by poets who had already had at least one full-length collection of poetry published. This first series, edited by the late James Reiss, featured poets including Ralph Angel, whose Neither<\/em> World<\/em> won the 1995 James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets. Hugh Seidman\u2019s Selected Poems: 1965-1995<\/em> won a 1995 Critics\u2019 Choice Award and was chosen as one of the Village Voice<\/em>\u2019s \u201c25 Favorite Books\u201d of 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2004, when Keith Tuma assumed its editorship, the press has published one book of poetry each year, often featuring poetry by British and Irish poets and poetry in translation, although it also continues to publish American poets. In 2013, Peter Manson\u2019s St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9: The Poems in Verse<\/a><\/em> was a finalist for the Cornelius M Popescu Prize given biennially by the Poetry Society of London to a book of poetry translated into English from another European language. In 2014, the Lois Roth Translation Prize for literary translation from Persian to English was awarded to Geoffrey Squires for Hafez: Translations and Interpretations of the Ghazals<\/a><\/em>. The translation list also includes Fastness<\/a><\/em>, Trevor Joyce\u2019s widely-reviewed English to English translation of the Mutability cantos from Edmund Spenser\u2019s The Faerie Queene<\/em>. Titles in poetry include books by Mair\u00e9ad Byrne, Peter Manson, Frederick Farryl Goodwin, Fergal Gaynor, Janice Lowe, Alissa Quart, Liz Waldner, Katy Bohinc and Kathleen Peirce. The poems in composer-poet Janice Lowe\u2019s Leaving CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal <\/a><\/em>(2016) are revisited in her musical work Leaving CLE: Songs of Nomadic Dispersal.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004 the press introduced a fiction series, beginning with Marianne Villanueva\u2019s collection of short stories, Mayor of the Roses<\/a><\/em>, and continuing since 2005 with novellas published as the winner of an annual novella contest. Winners of the contest have been selected by creative writing faculty at Miami and more recently by distinguished writers invited to judge the contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The press began its novella contest with the idea of exploring and promoting a form underrepresented in most lists, although happily there are now more small presses publishing novellas than when we started. Thanks to the different interests of our judges, and with a new judge each year, the novellas we have published are remarkably varied\u00a0in style and focus.

Recent winners include Clancy McGilligan\u2019s dystopian fable\u00a0History of An Executioner<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2019), described by a reviewer as \u201ca sensitive, touching portrait of life in limbo that resonates powerfully with those of us sheltering in place from a fraught and threatening world,\u201d and H.G. Gildfind\u2019s\u00a0Born Sleeping<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2020), a novella Australian novelist Philip Salom compares to an \u201cextraordinary CT scan of the feeling mind and especially the feeling body.\u201d Still more recently, there is Nathanial White\u2019s\u00a0Conscious Designs<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2021), our first work of speculative fiction, and Rashi Rohatgi\u2019s\u00a0Sita In Exile<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2022),\u00a0a novella drawing upon Hindu mythology in a lyrical exploration of migrant sisterhood and brown motherhood in today\u2019s Europe.\u00a0

Our authors have included first-time authors as well as widely-published ones. They are independent writers and creative writing professors, literature scholars retired or working abroad, a high school English teacher, a law professor, and a nuclear physicist, to name a few of their jobs. One of them, Garth Greenwell, author of\u00a0Mitko<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2010), has become one of the most celebrated American writers of his generation. We have been lucky to publish all of them and have enjoyed working with them to see their books into print. Here’s the full list of winning titles.<\/a>

In 2005 the press published the first of its books about conferences held at Miami,\u00a0Rainbow<\/em>
Darkness: An Anthology of African American Poetry<\/em>, which grew out of poems and talks presented at Marjorie Cook Conference on Diversity in African American Poetry in September 2003. In 2009, the press published\u00a0Performing Worlds into Being<\/a>: Native American Women’s Theater<\/em>, based on a 2007 conference on Native North American theater. In 2013, the press published\u00a0Finding Freedom: Memorializing the Voices of Freedom Summer<\/a><\/em>\u00a0about the Freedom Summer Memorial on the campus of Western College at Miami University, a memorial dedicated in 2000 to commemorate Western\u2019s role in Freedom Summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Joseph Bates was named co-editor of the press, joining Keith Tuma, Managing Editor Amy Toland, and the interns and members of the extended Miami University literary community who participate in the work of the press and the events hosted by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Masthead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-editors, Keith Tuma and Joseph Bates
Interns, Jocelyn Gale and Lilian Wahl
Design, Crisis<\/a>

Contact<\/strong>
mupress@miamioh.edu

Miami University Press
Harris Hall
500 Harris Dr.
Oxford, OH 45056
513.529.5221<\/p>\n\n\n\n