Monday, September 30, 2013

Now Hiring: Internship Opportunities Available

Internship opportunities available at the University of Georgia Press

The University of Georgia Press, the oldest and largest publisher of scholarly and general-interest books within the state, offers a number of unpaid internships for the spring 2014 semester. The Press, which has a staff of 28 publishing professionals, produces 70-90 new books a year and is located in the Main Library at the University of Georgia.

These positions allow students who are interested in a career in book publishing to learn about scholarly and trade book publishing and to gain valuable on-the-job experience.

ACQUISITIONS POSITIONS
 
The acquisitions department at the University of Georgia Press seeks interns for the spring 2014 semester. Interns work 8-10 hours per week and are unpaid. Interns will have the opportunity to learn the basics of scholarly book publishing as they provide ongoing support for proposed book projects moving through the review process. Interns are also encouraged to attend in-house meetings with staff. Candidates must be capable of writing clear, professional correspondence and of juggling and prioritizing multiple assignments.

Tasks will vary, but may include such things as the following:
--drafting and sending letters to prospective authors, reviewers, and blurbers
--preparing manuscripts for reviewers
--maintaining project information in the Press database
--helping with image and permissions inventories
--preparing manuscripts and accompanying materials for transmittal to editorial
--drafting and sending decline letters
--completing small research assignments

To apply, send résumé and cover letter by October 18 to Sydney DuPre.
 

EDITORIAL POSITIONS

The manuscript editorial department at the University of Georgia Press seeks interns for approximately 10 hours per week during spring 2014. The interns in manuscript editorial will learn the basics about the editorial process as texts accepted for publication move from manuscript to bound book. How do project editors coordinate the work of freelance copy editors and authors to provide a final manuscript to production? What is The Chicago Manual of Style and how do editors use it? What are design elements? How do editors track art, permissions, and other materials on a given project?

Tasks will vary, but the interns will aid the department with such things as the following:
--editing indexes
--preparing art inventories
--preparing disks for copyediting
--coding manuscripts for design
--proofreading texts

Requirements:
The candidate must be a full-time student at UGA and should have a minimum 3.00 GPA; a working knowledge of Microsoft Word; a thorough understanding of grammar, spelling, and punctuation; an ability to attend to detail; and an interest in publishing. A proofreading test will be required.

If interested, send résumé and cover letter by October 18 to John Joerschke.


MARKETING POSITIONS

The marketing department at the University of Georgia Press seeks interns for spring 2014 semester. Interns work 10-15 hours per week and are unpaid. There are opportunities for interns to work in publicity and web marketing. Experience from these internships can translate well to marketing jobs in other art and entertainment industries. Students may be eligible for credit if they apply early enough and go through the right channels. Amanda Sharp (see contact below) can provide details.

Internship details are as follows:

Publicity Intern:
--Will work with the publicity manager to help capture print and online reviews and excerpt key quotes for our database and online sales outlets.
--Will also research niche publicity outlets and carry out specialized publicity mailings for new books, as time and interest allow.

Publishing Data Intern:
--Will help distribute book metadata among the Press’s many trading partners. Metadata includes such elements as a book's title, author, and price. More complex metadata can range from a book’s table of contents to its subject areas. Our trading partners include booksellers (retail and wholesale), libraries, and data collection centers.
--Ideal candidates will be highly organized, detail oriented, and have an interest in databases, cataloging, and online information exchange standards.
--An interest in either a library or publishing career is a plus.

Direct Mail Intern:
--Will work with the promotions manager on direct mail efforts, primarily targeting course adoptions for scholarly books.
--Work includes building mailing lists, researching niche markets, helping create mailing pieces, and assisting with mailings.
--May help occasionally in writing copy for various campaigns.
--No design skills necessary.
--Working knowledge of Excel and Emma a plus.

To apply, send résumé and cover letter by October 18 to Amanda E. Sharp.

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION POSITIONS 
 
The design and production department at the University of Georgia Press seeks interns for spring 2014 semester. Interns work six to nine hours weekly. Interns will provide support for all aspects of the production process--as copyedited and coded/styled manuscripts are transformed into books in many different formats, including e-books, and as previously published titles are processed for reprinting. Candidates must have knowledge of or the ability to quickly learn the following programs within a Mac-based platform and workflow: Adobe Acrobat, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Excel, and Word. The ability to attend to detail is essential.

Interns will have the opportunity to learn:
--illustration program management, from analysis reproducibility to pre-press preparation
--quality-control measures for different stages of proofs and samples
--how to produce cover mechanicals for reprints
--how to make text corrections for reprints
--strategies for researching and requesting reprint permissions
--how to enter and track essential information in Press-wide database

To apply, please send résumé and cover letter by October 18 to Melissa Buchanan.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Short Takes

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an excerpt from Book 1 of Janisse Ray's DRIFTING INTO DARIEN (new in paperback). Check out the exclusive here.

Flannery O'Connor Award winner Margot Singer (PALE OF SETTLEMENT) was part of a literary salon event on September 10th, hosted by the Bexley Community Book Club. Along with a reading by several authors, the event also boasted a readers theatre performance by local actors. More information about the event is available here.

The book trailer for Julian Hoffman's THE SMALL HEART OF THINGS is now available for viewing. Watch it on YouTube or Vimeo. Or, check it out below.



The front page of the Saturday, September 14 edition of the Athens Banner-Herald featured an article about three classic UGA Press books that are now back in print and available for the first-time in paperback.
Barbara McKenzie didn't start out to become a photographer, much less produce one of the South's best-known documentary photography books--FLANNERY O'CONNOR'S GEORGIA, coming out next month in a new edition from the University of Georgia Press. It is one of eight books the press is reprinting to commemorate its 75th anniversary.
Northeast Georgia Living features a review of THE NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF GEORGIA, calling it "an exciting, detailed portrait of our state's natural environment."

Three UGA Press titles (ISLAND TIME, REMAKING WORMSLOE PLANTATION, and ON THE RIM OF THE CARIBBEAN) have been selected to receive awards from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board! The Awards program will be on October 22 at the Georgia Archives in Morrow, GA. The reception will start at 4:30, with the awards ceremony at 5:30, including a presentation by Steve Wrigley of the Board of Regents.

Congratulations to National Book Award nominee Martha Ronk! Ronk is the author of DESIRE IN L.A., which was published by UGA Press in 1990. Her NBA nomination is for her new book of poetry, TRANSFER OF QUALITIES.

Looking for more ways to connect with us? Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Goodreads, Instragram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Jumping on the Pynchon bandwagon...

Thomas Pynchon is the author of several novels, including V., THE CRYING OF LOT 49, and GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. His newest book, THE BLEEDING EDGE, has been called "[b]rillantly written" (Washington Post), "dazzling and ludicrous" (New York Times Book Review), and "darkly hilarious" (Library Journal). Is the book on your "want-to-read" list?

If so, you might want to consider adding some of our titles that deal with Pynchon's works, including "GRAVITY'S RAINBOW," DOMINATION, AND FREEDOM. Available in time for the 40th anniversary of Pynchon's GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (1973), "GRAVITY'S RAINBOW," DOMINATION, AND FREEDOM is a groundbreaking study of one of the twentieth century's most radical and enduring novels. Offering a theoretically and historically informed approach to the main characters and storylines in GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, authors Luc Herman and Steven Weisenburger place the great novel in its "Long Sixties" context—anti-war resistance, freedom struggles, free speech crusades, and strong critiques of late-modern forms of domination. Tracing the novel's persistent and deep doubts about "the chances for freedom" in a globalized military-industrial "System," "GRAVITY'S RAINBOW," DOMINATION, AND FREEDOM realizes a darker GRAVITY'S RAINBOW than critics have been willing to see. The book will be available this December.

Other Pynchon-related titles include:

THOMAS PYNCHON AND THE DARK PASSAGES OF HISTORY by David Cowart

"In this concise, jargon-free study, Cowart elucidates Pynchon's postmodernist grappling with history in all seven of his novels and in his short stories, journalism, and ephemera. . . .This study will be extremely useful for beginning readers of America's greatest living historical novelist and a pleasure for all experienced critics as well."—Choice


A GRAVITY'S RAINBOW COMPANION by Steven C. Weisenburger    

“Astute detective work . . . The Companion offers a wealth of information that makes it indispensable reading for Pynchon scholars. It is a remarkable achievement, representing untold hours of research into the flotsam and jetsam that constitutes the surface of Pynchon's preterite text.” —Pynchon Notes

 
A COMPANION TO V. by J. Kerry Grant

"A solid, most resourceful guide to a text that challenges even the most knowledgeable and patient readers."—Studies in the Novel   


A COMPANION TO THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by J. Kerry Grant

"Anyone who teaches the novel or writes about it in the future will want to take along this useful companion."—Review of Contemporary Fiction

Friday, September 06, 2013

Short Takes

Three Flannery O'Connor Award winners (Geoffrey Becker's BLACK ELVIS, Harvey Grossinger's THE QUARRY, and E. J. Levy's LOVE, IN THEORY) had an event at the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore on Tuesday night. In advance of the event, the Baltimore Sun interviewed the three authors about short story writing.
You all have either written novels or are in the process of writing them. Can you talk about the difference between long-form and short-form writing?
Levy: The short story has a density and richness and beauty and intimacy that it's hard to find in any form of writing other than poetry. Writing a short story is a little bit like making love. There's an intense pleasure that may be brief and that leads to an illuminating conclusion.
I'm pregnant now with my first child, and it seems to me that writing a novel is more gestational than writing a short story. Reading a novel takes more time and writing one takes more time. It slowly reshapes your world.
Becker: I love E.J.'s metaphor. It's sort of the difference between making love and being in a long-term relationship. Writing a novel takes forever, and you're not the same person at the end. You've changed. You've moved. Real life tends to filter in when you're writing a novel in an ongoing way that it probably doesn't when you're writing a short story.
Grossinger: I don't consider myself a natural short-story writer. When I entered a graduate writing program in the '80s, my short stories were just novels in disguise. I had to keep chopping them down. I'm just more drawn to the long form. Short stories have a much narrower vision. They're a moment in time. You can't exfoliate the entire life of a character, with their beginnings and ends, in a short story in the same way you can in a novel.
Booklist reviews the two newest Flannery O'Connor Award winners: THEIVES I'VE KNOWN and THE VIEWING ROOM. According to Booklist, THIEVES I'VE KNOWN is "a memorable THE VIEWING ROOM is described as "hard-hitting."
collection," while

Flannery O'Connor Award winner, Alfred DePew (THE MELANCHOLY OF DEPARTURE) has a piece on e-books in the Vancouver Observer.

WUKY 91.3 features selections from TURN ME LOOSE, along with historical context commentary and music, to mark the 50th anniversary of Medgar Evers' passing.

Last Thursday, two UGA Press books, REMAKING WORMSLOE PLANTATION and ATLANTA'S OAKLAND CEMETERY, received awards from the Georgia Historical Society during a ceremony held on the University of Georgia campus. The Malcolm Bell, Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell Award for best book on Georgia history went to Drew Swanson's REMAKING WORMSLOE PLANTATION and the Lilla M. Hawes Award for best local or county or history book pertaining to Georgia went to ATLANTA'S OAKLAND CEMETERY by Ren and Helen Davis. For more on the event, including quotes from the Georgia Historical Society (GHS) President & CEO Todd Groce and GHS trustee Vince Dooley, read the article in the student newspaper, the Red & Black.
Right to left: Todd Groce, Ren and Helen Davis, Vince Dooley, Lisa Bayer. Not pictured: Drew Swanson.
The Decatur Book Festival was held in Decatur, GA over the Labor Day weekend. Here are some photos from the event:

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Winners Announced for the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction

Congratulations to Karin Lin-Greenberg and Monica McFawn, this year's winners of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction! The competition, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, continues to be a celebrated route to publication for literary short fiction collections. UGA Press is glad to have Lin-Greenberg and McFawn carry on this tradition.

Lin-Greenberg’s FAULTY PREDICTIONS and McFawn’s BRIGHT SHARDS OF SOMEPLACE ELSE will be published by the University of Georgia Press and will be available in fall 2014.

Karin Lin-Greenberg's stories have appeared in The Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Epoch, Kenyon Review Online, The North American Review, Redivider, and elsewhere. Currently, she is an assistant professor at Siena College, where she teaches creative writing.

Flannery O’Connor series editor Nancy Zafris on Lin-Greenberg’s collection: “The many, diverse tales in this collection deliver the realism and emotional heft of a Chekhov story: full, total experiences that pause along the way for laughter and insight into the human condition. The author is a sublime chameleon who takes us deep into lives so varied and different that a map of the characters would simply read: The World.”

Monica McFawn has published fiction, poetry, and is currently working on a play. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Georgia Review, Confrontation, Gargoyle, Web Conjunctions, Conduit, Hotel Amerika, and others. McFawn holds an MFA in poetry from Western Michigan University and currently teaches in the writing department at Grand Valley State University. In her spare time, McFawn trains her Welsh Cob cross pony in dressage and jumping.

Nancy Zafris on McFawn’s collection: “The writing and language soar in these amazing, unusual, funny stories that whip away that familiar rug under our feet and turn it into a magic carpet. Journeys through the initially familiar terrain of babysitting or the death of a pet paint new constellations in the sky, and the reader, really, must look up in wonder.”

The finalists in this year’s competition are Thomas Benz of Evanston, IL; MaryEllen Beveridge of Cambridge, MA; Polly Buckingham of Medical Lake, WA; Serena Crawford of Portland, OR; Geeta Kothari of Pittsburgh, PA; James Mathews of Adamstown, MD; Ann Ryles of Moraga, CA; Jay Shearer of Chicago, IL; Adam Stumacher of Jamaica Plain, MA; and Seth Brady Tucker of Lafayette, CO.

Congratulations to all participants and thank you for creating compelling short fiction. The award-winning books selected in last year's competition, THIEVES I'VE KNOWN by Tom Kealey and THE VIEWING ROOM by Jacqueline Gorman will release this month.