UCP News

The University of Chicago Press and the Chicago Distribution Center welcome former UPNE publishers

We’re please to be able to share some good news that’s perfectly timed for University Press Week—#TurnItUP!

The University of Chicago Press and the Chicago Distribution Center are pleased to announce that Autumn House Press, Brandeis University Press, Carnegie Mellon University Press, Dartmouth College Press, New Issues Poetry & Prose, Oberlin College Press, Omnidawn Publishing, and 2Leaf Press, all formerly distributed by UPNE,  as well as books published under UPNE’s own imprint, are joining the CDC and will be marketed and sold by the University of Chicago Press. All orders for books from these publishers can now be directed to the CDC. Joseph D’Onofrio, the director of the CDC, said “The University of Chicago Press and the Chicago Distribution Center are pleased to welcome our new publishers from UPNE to the family. We look forward to helping them flourish, as they continue to publish great and compelling books.”

Founded in 1998, Autumn House Press publishes full-length collections of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The press concentrates on publishing the work of excellent contemporary writers who have a following among readers, but whose work has been overlooked by commercial publishers. Autumn House Press believes art and literature are essential to the growth of a community and society. Autumn House authors have won or been finalists for the Whiting Award, NAACP Image Award, and many others. Poems and excerpts have been republished in the New York Times Magazine, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and other venues.

Brandeis University Press was founded more than forty-five years ago and has produced critically acclaimed and award-winning books in the humanities and social sciences, as well as general interest titles, with a particular commitment to publishing compelling and innovative approaches to the study of the Jewish experience worldwide. Brandeis University Press’s eight series—the Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and LifeHBI Series on Jewish Women; Schusterman Series in Israel Studies; Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry; Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought; Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law; Mandel Lectures in the Humanities; and the Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures (sponsored by the Historical Society of Israel)—account for the vast majority of its publishing program.

Carnegie Mellon University Press was founded in 1972 by its current director, Gerald Costanzo. The Press publishes approximately twelve titles each year in regional social history, art history, the performing arts, literary analysis, education, and university history. Carnegie Mellon’s particular strength continues to lie in literary publishing with the following series: Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series; the Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries; the Series in Short Fiction; the Series in Translation; and the Poets in Prose Series. Books under the Press imprint have included titles by Pulitzer Prize winners Rita Dove, Ted Kooser, Franz Wright, Stephen Dunn, and Peter Balakian.

Dartmouth College’s unique focus on personalized arts and science learning has made it a global leader in liberal education. This unique focus is reflected in the books that Dartmouth College Press publishes. DCP’s interdisciplinary approach to publishing touches on everything from the fine and visual arts to cross-cultural criticisms of American Studies to global health and medicine. DCP publishes a number of innovative series, including Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture, Remapping the Trans-National: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies, Reencounters with Colonialism, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, and the Geisel Series in Global Health and Medicine.

New Issues Poetry & Prose, established in 1996, and housed on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, publishes four to six new poetry titles a year, as well as the winner of the AWP Award Series in the Novel. The New Issues Poetry Prize and the Editor’s Choice Prize are awarded yearly to first books of poetry, and the Green Rose Prize to a collection of poetry by a poet who has previously published one or more volumes of poetry. Their guiding principle is to look beyond school and fashion in order to locate original—and astonishing—work. New Issues books have won the American Book Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the Goldberg Prize, and have been longlisted for the National Book Award. New Issues is proud of its commitment to discovering new voices and to supporting the best work of established poets and novelists.

For forty years, Oberlin College Press has been publishing poetry through its Translation and FIELD poetry series and has offered perennially valuable course readers through its FIELD Anthology series Oberlin’s books have won or been finalists for numerous awards, including being a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2010 and a winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award in 2015. They are committed to bringing poetic voices from around the world to English-language readers and to supporting fresh contemporary poetry written here in the United States.

Omnidawn Publishing, Inc. is an Oakland-based independent 501(c)(3) press, dedicated to publishing literature that opens readers to the myriad ways that language brings new light, compassionate insight, and a heightened respect for differences. Since its founding in 2001 by copublishers Rusty Morrison and Ken Keegan, Omnidawn has become a vibrant community of authors, editors, designers, and interns. The press has gained national recognition as both a Bay Area gem and a vital contributor to literature that confronts the issues and trials and triumphs that is life in the twenty-first century. Omnidawn books have won four PEN USA Awards, two American Book Awards, a James Laughlin Award, a Colorado Book Award, and a Landon Translation Award, while others have been finalists for Lambda Awards, PEN USA Awards, and the Kingsley Tufts Prize, and have been longlisted for the National Book Award. Currently, Diana Khoi Nguyen’s book Ghost Of is a finalist for the National Book Award.

2Leaf Press publishes fiction, non‐fiction, poetry, drama, and bilingual works by activists, scholars, poets, and authors with cultural stories that inform, entertain, educate, and inspire. 2Leaf is especially dedicated to publishing scholarship regarding diversity and social justice that is accessible to the general public as they tackle the fundamental issues of our human condition in meaningful ways. 2Leaf Press is an imprint of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a New York-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy.

For more information about the Chicago Distribution Center and the services it offers, please contact Saleem Dhamee, Director of Client Services and Business Operations, sdhamee@uchicago.edu.