The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

, a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

land-grant

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...

with its main campus in

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the ...

. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and a member of the Association of American University Presses.

History

Founded in 1938, the UGA Press is a publishing division of the

and is located on the North Campus in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

, United States. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in the state of Georgia and one of the largest in the South. UGA Press has been a member of the Association of American University Presses since 1940. The

and Mercer University are the only member presses in the state of Georgia. The press employs 24 full-time publishing professionals, publishes 80–85 new books a year, and has more than 1500 titles in print. The press is the only scholarly publisher within the University System of Georgia serving all 31 institutions of higher education in the state. In 2008 the press received the Governor's Award in the Humanities.

Publications

The UGA Press publishes 70–80 titles each year of scholarly and academic, regional, and literary works with a focus on

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and Southern studies. It is also a leading publisher of African-American studies, civil rights history and environmental studies. The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction was established by Charles East, then the editor-in-chief of the UGA Press, in 1983 to recognize gifted young writers. The press is also a long-time publisher of creative writing through books published in conjunction with the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs - Associated Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction, the National Poetry Series, and other literary competitions and series. The publishing program has been nationally recognized, and in recent years a number of books published by the press have won major awards. In conjunction with the Georgia Humanities Council and GALILEO, the UGA Press created the

New Georgia Encyclopedia The ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'' (NGE) is a web-based encyclopedia containing over 2,000 articles about the state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is a program of Georgia Humanities (GH), in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, t ...

, an online resource of Georgia history. The UGA Press has successfully published original novels and works by writers such as Rick Bass,

Erskine Caldwell Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as '' Tobacco Road'' (1 ...

Terry Kay Terry Winter Kay (February 10, 1938 – December 12, 2020) was an American author, whose novels examined life in the American South. His most well-known book, ''To Dance with the White Dog'', was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame television mov ...

James Kilgo
Barry Lopez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Mary Hood, Harry Crews,

Tom Wicker Thomas Grey Wicker (June 18, 1926 – November 25, 2011) was an American journalist. He was a political reporter and columnist for '' The New York Times''. Background and education Wicker was born in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was a gradua ...

, Calvin Trillin,

Roy Blount, Jr. Roy Alton Blount Jr. (; born October 4, 1941) is an American writer, speaker, reporter, and humorist. Life and career Blount was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and grew up in Decatur, Georgia. He attended Ponce de Leon Elementary School and gr ...

, Eugene Genovese, Rebecca Solnit, David Carkeet (of ''Campus Sexpot'' fame), and

Catherine Clinton Catherine Clinton is the Denman Professor of American History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She specializes in American History, with an emphasis on the history of the South, the American Civil War, American women, and African Ame ...

Controversies

The press has been the subject of several scandals. Documents uncovered by the website Foetry.com revealed that the 1999 University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry series prize to Peter M. Sacks had been judged by

Jorie Graham Jorie Graham (; born May 9, 1950) is an American poet. The Poetry Foundation called Graham "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation." She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at ...

, a colleague of Sacks at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

who subsequently married him.Tomas Alex Tizon, "In Search of Poetic Justice," ''Los Angeles Times'', June 17, 2005. Available at th
LA Times
(subscription needed). Text is available a
New Poetry Review
o
SFgate
(accessed 16 March 2007)Thomas Bartlett, "Rhyme and Unreason," ''Chronicle of Higher Education,'' May 20, 2005

(accessed March 16, 2005) Throughout the course of the controversy, series editor Bin Ramke had insisted that judges of the contest be kept secret, and until Foetry.com obtained the names of judges via The Open Records Act, the conflict of interest had been undisclosed. As a result of the critical coverage from Foetry.com and elsewhere, Ramke resigned from the editorship of the series. The University of Georgia Press now discloses the names of its poetry judges, who "are instructed to avoid conflicts of interest of all kinds."Alex Beam, "Website polices rhymes and misdemeanors," ''Boston Globe'', March 31, 2005
available here
/ref> On October 27, 2005, the University of Georgia Press rescinded author Brad Vice's Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and recalled copies of his collection ''The

Bear Bryant Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of ...

Funeral Train.'' Vice was alleged to have plagiarized sections of one story from

Carl Carmer Carl Lamson Carmer (October 16, 1893 – September 11, 1976) was an American writer of nonfiction books, memoirs, and novels, many of which focused on American myths, folklore, and tales. His most famous book, ''Stars Fell on Alabama,'' was an ...

's book ''Stars Fell on Alabama'' (1934) (a charge that Vice and others dispute).

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Georgia Press Press

Publishing companies established in 1938