New publishing imprint focuses on Midwest voices, stories
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What is the history and mission of the University Press of Kansas?
For decades the University Press of Kansas has been a mainstay of literary life in Kansas and the Great Plains. Starting this year, the press is embarking upon a new adventure with a new imprint called Plain Spoken Books. Welcome to the Kansas Reflector Podcast. My name is Clay Wirestone. I'm the opinion editor at Kansas Reflector. I'm also signed to write a couple of books for the UPK over the next couple of years, and to talk about the press and its new endeavors, I'm happy to welcome one of its editors today. Alec Loganville, uh welcome.
Thank you so much. This is really exciting.
So let's talk a little bit just at the beginning about the University Press of Kansas, uh, where you work. And you know, I think some people who are involved in books in Kansas or who read books uh especially about Kansas, they've maybe seen the label University Press of Kansas, but maybe they don't entirely understand uh what it is or what that means. So Tell us a little bit about the press.
Yeah, so UPK, University Press of Kansas, uh we are coming up on 80 years, which is very exciting. That will be next year. So we've been publishing books in the state of Kansas uh for 79 years right now, and we are overseen by the six state schools. uh in the state of Kansas. So we are housed at KU and KU helps us out a a lot uh and they do great work, but so do K-St, Wichita State, Fort Hays, Emporia State, and Pitt State. So all six schools oversee us and they're great partners. Uh and uh yeah, I think what most people that sort of live in the state uh would come across us would be, you know, through our nature guides, things like uh wildflowers and grasses of Kansas, uh, you know, a guide to Kansas birds and burning hot spots is always kind of a perennial uh seller for us.
We have published some great kind of Uh Cowboy Stories by uh the late Jim Hoy. No Place by Home by CJ Janovi was uh you know a great book that we were able to put together with her. Um, but that's just kind of a sliver of our publishing program. What most people Uh in the university press community would know us for most people in the academic communities would know us for is going to be military history, American politics, presidential studies, constitutional law, uh Native American indigenous studies. Uh, and that's most of our list. So we publish about 50 books a year, and I would say You know, at this point maybe five or six are sort of that uh regional Kansas interest kind of thing. Uh and the rest is peer-reviewed scholarship written by professors and scholars uh for those fields.
And I I really wanna take emphasize the point that you made there, which is the volume of books that you guys publish. You know, you said around fifty a year. So in other words, basically y'all average about a book a week.
Yeah, that's about right. Uh which is and yeah, so thank you for saying that, because it is kind of a Herculean effort. Uh especially since there are eleven full time staff and a handful of student interns uh from KU, which we couldn't do what we do without our interns. Uh but fifty books a year from eleven people and change is is quite the feat. And so we're we're really proud of the work we put out and the volume uh that we put out. Yeah.
Um So just uh just a a personal note here. Sure. So you're fairly new at the press. Say a little bit about how, you know, kind of your background and how you got on board.
Sure. So yes, I just started my fifth year uh in August. So I am one of the more junior folks here. Um and I got started as an intern. I was uh getting my masters in history at K State. Uh I was interested in uh Publishing as an opportunity that where I could use my masters, use my sort of academic uh interests and knowledge and not go into Teaching as a professor, uh, which is how a lot of people wind up in university press publishing. Uh, but yeah, I came on as an intern, spent about six months there, and then through a series of uh openings and people departing in the right sort of staff moving around. I've been lucky enough to stay here.
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