By Natalie Klinkenberg, Chloë Marshall, Mishelle Kennady and Frankie Harnett
As the oldest and largest publishing house in the state of Georgia, The University of Georgia Press is no stranger to publishing award-winning books. Publishing seventy books a year, the UGA Press’ mission as their website states is “to support and enhance the University’s place as a major research institution.” The press achieves this by publishing work from around the globe written by scholars and writers. This year, their imprint series in collaboration with Georgia Review Books is the home of the Pulitzer Prize poetry winner Tripas: Poems by Brandon Som. Tripas is one of the many books from Georgia Review Books that encompasses and continues the review’s mission while introducing work from writers who, according to Georgia Review Books’ website, are “new to the Anglophone reading public or emerging within [their] literary landscape.”
With that, The Georgia Review has been collaborating with writers and publishing work since 1947, with the belief that communities flourish when differences in discourse between two people are honored. This builds onto the work that they publish, which incorporates the concerns and interests of a global audience. The Georgia Review focuses on work that their website states, “[will] continue the conversations in their [readers’] own lives” by challenging readers to reevaluate their thoughts and conversations that may be seen as too safe or stuck in a specific state of mind.
The University of Georgia Press publishes books under three principal categories: works of scholarship; creative and literary works; and regional books. Particularly concerned with North American history, geography and literature, their corpus is a testament to cultural, geographical, ecological, and historical singularity. For a full list of their areas of interest, visit their website here. While there is ample literature covering their eponymous state, UGA Press supports research across the entire South as well as the wider continent; the original – and maintained – “regional commitment” of The Georgia Review is extended both into its namesake imprint and beyond: Georgia Review Books is one of five imprints, exclusively publishing literary and creative works. Meanwhile;
The Library of American Landscape History (LALH) publishes highly researched, illustrated books which study various North American landscape architectures.
Milestone Press publishes expert guide books to the great outdoors of several US states, with maps, trails, points of interest, and everything one could need to go adventuring on and off the beaten track.
NewSouth Books (NSB) publishes fiction and non-fiction books dealing with the history and culture of the American South, focusing on civil and human rights.
Wormsloe Foundation Nature Books are informative publications concerning the natural environments of the American Southeast, with a particular dedication to the preservation of these unique ecosystems.
The Georgia Review imprint offers a wide variety of topics when browsing through their publications. To highlight a few pieces, we begin with the poem that inspired this article’s subject matter in Pulitzer Prize-winning Tripas: Poems by Brandon Som. The idea of America being called a “melting pot” rings true throughout this work as it weaves together the author’s multicultural background, utilising etymology and phonetic sounds in foreign languages to paint a full picture of their unique identity. The stories about Som’s grandparents from Mexican and Chinese heritages and their collective history, celebrate generations of immigrants struggling to make a name for themselves and the children that inherit their legacy. The UGA Press website describes the next spotlight as “a decentralised book of revolutionary poetry” concerning the title Hong Kong Without Us. As the book itself credits no single author and the edits completed by the Bauhinia Project also operate anonymously, the collection is a non-linear medium achieved by combining encrypted testimonials and accounts from the anti-extradition protests of 2019— the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong till date. The mission of the Bauhinia Project is to keep discussion alive about strife in Hong Kong and allow marginalized voices to be heard through transnational activism everywhere. In the UGA Press’ latest issue of upcoming works, Nuggets of Gold by Patrick Dixon traces the rise of fast food and its relation to the perceived American diet. It will connect different facets of the further processed chicken industry and especially cover consumer choice, which aligns with their values and insight on “leisure, lifestyle, and bodily needs.” Lookout for its publication on 1 October 2024.
Despite the success of Tripas and the backing of Georgia’s largest publisher, first-time authors should not be intimidated by the Pulitzer-winning imprint. Conversely, Georgia Review Books actively encourages undiscovered writers to send in submissions. The imprint looks for work that engages with conversations happening in The Georgia Review and is particularly interested in amateur authors or writers publishing in English for the first time.
Similarly, The Georgia Review engages a wide range of writers by holding literary competitions. Their most well-known competition is the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, which boasts a $1,500 prize and the work of the final three being published. Submissions for this run between 7 February and 15 May. For authors, The Georgia Review Prose Prize is particularly popular, offering $1,500 for both the winning short story and essay, and publication of their work. Submissions for this must be sent in between 1 November and 2 January. Standard submissions to The Georgia Review can be made all year round except for between 15 May and 15 August. The review accepts manuscripts for poetry, short stories, book reviews and essays. Manuscripts should be submitted to the review’s Submittable account for a fee of $3, which subscribers to the journal can get for free by contacting email garev@uga.edu.
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