Book Smarts

Tucson writer Patricia Preciado Martin used to tell camping stories
to her son and daughter—the same Mexican legends she remembers
being told about as a child, like “La Llorona,” the crying woman of the
wash.

One day, her husband, now a retired Pima Community College
professor, told her that she should think about putting these legends
in a book. That encouraged Preciado Martin to go into the old
neighborhoods and sit down with elders to hear them retell these
stories, some far more local than the ever-Mexican “La Llorona.”

“I heard stories like ‘El Tejano’ and ‘The Devil in the Carrillo
Gardens,’ and the more people I talked to, the more stories I heard
about buried treasure, ghosts and what have you,” Preciado Martin
recalls. “But then these elders … started telling me about their
stories, and I realized they were talking about our heritage … our
history.”

While Preciado Martin published The Legend of the Bellringer of
San Agustin as a result, she also learned that each person she
talked to was a link to the Mexican-American community’s cultural
heritage, and in turn, a part of Tucson’s own history.

Preciado Martin decided to gather the oral histories of 13 Mexican
Americans from Southern Arizona, and in 1983, they were published in
the book Images and Conversations: Mexican Americans Recall a
Southwestern Past, with photographs by the late Tucson barrio
photographer Louis Carlos Bernal.

This year, her publisher—the University of Arizona
Press—is celebrating its 50th anniversary of calling attention to
writers like Preciado Martin, in the process garnering a reputation as
both a scholarly publishing house and a strong general-interest
publisher with a focus on the things that make life wondrous in the
Southwest.

And in Tucson, that means a focus on environmental sciences and
astronomy, anthropology, Native-American studies and Latin-American
studies (including Preciado Martin’s work for the last two decades),
plus a growing number of border-related books.

Kathryn Conrad, the UA Press’ interim director, has been with the
house for 14 years and was first hired as the marketing director.
During her tenure, she’s enjoyed the awards and praise heaped on the
press and its authors, but she says her true source of pride is far
more basic.

“For me, it always comes back to the books. You feel so proud of
individual titles and authors. Writers like Patricia Preciado Martin
are a good example. We helped give her and the community a voice to
celebrate Mexicano culture in Tucson. There are others where we’ve
launched their careers. They may have gone on to other presses, but
they got their start with us,” Conrad says.

Preciado Martin says that thanks to the UA Press, she was able to
sit down with people in the community who no one had ever really
bothered to talk to before—preserving a history that could have
been lost if not for Preciado Martin’s interest.

Almost 10 years after her first book, the press published Songs
My Mother Sang to Me, a book filled with personal oral histories of
Mexican-American women from Southern Arizona, each with intimate
details of family life in Tucson barrios or lives on family ranches,
and often with themes of strong women just as connected to the land as
the men they had lived with and raised.

Collecting the stories led her and some of her subjects—most
of them in their 80s—to remote areas surrounding Tucson, to land
that once belonged to their families. If the women were lucky, they’d
find corners of adobe buildings remaining. With one woman, they found
the family’s shrine and some old fencing still standing.

“There were these places hidden away that I grew to look at as our
monuments. I became a treasure hunter,” she says. “… I knew my
mothers and my grandmothers. I knew they didn’t fit the stereotype that
popular culture had of the Hispanic woman.”

Today, Preciado Martin has six books published through the UA Press:
three oral histories of the region’s Mexican-American community and
three-short story collections inspired by the tales she heard.

“I feel like I’ve given something to the community, sure, but they
have given to me so, so much more.”

Another writer published through the UA Press who has given much to
the community is Tohono O’odham linguist and poet Ofelia Zepeda. A
linguistics professor at the UA, Zepeda wrote the first O’odham
language grammar book, published by the UA Press in 1983: A Tohono
O’odham Grammar.

In her office on the UA campus, Zepeda sits at a table stacked with
poetry and short-story collections by other Native-American writers
from throughout the country—all published by the UA Press. A
growing number of young Native American writers are published through
its Sun Tracks series, of which Zepeda is editor.

The Sun Tracks series started in the 1970s as a journal written
mostly by Native American undergraduate students at the UA. It grew
from a journal into a book series thanks to an O’odham language class
taught by Zepeda. She says most of the Tohono O’odham students in her
class knew how to speak the language, but not to write in it—so
she came up with a way to teach writing that resembled a
creative-writing workshop.

Students brought in poems or traditional songs, and exchanged them
with each other during the class. By the end of the year, Zepeda says,
she ended up with beautiful original and reinterpreted poems and songs
written in O’odham. She collected them in a folder and took them to
Larry Evers, a UA English professor. To her surprise, he thought the
work needed to be published.

The UA Press published that volume in 1984, and from there, Sun
Tracks became a UA Press series dedicated to the work of
Native-American writers. It’s grown from one published book a year to
three or four books a year.

“This is what is exciting, and I am proud I am a part of it, working
with young writers and seeing how good their work is. It’s exciting
there is a place for this work at the UA Press,” Zepeda says.

Her own poetry has been included in the series. Ocean Power:
Poems From the Desert came out in 1995, and her latest, Where
Clouds Are Formed, was released in 2008.

When asked what her relationship with the UA Press has come to mean,
Zepeda once again looks down at the books before her and smiles
wide.

“You know, when I came to the UA to go to college, I didn’t have a
plan for myself. Much of the success I’ve experienced has to do with
timing and the fact that I arrived wanting to learn how to read and
write O’odham.”

Her quest to read and write in her native language took her to the
Anthropology Department, and then to her final home: linguistics.
That’s how she was introduced to Larry Evers and the UA Press, and
through her language students, it’s where she discovered poetry.

“I know people who’ve been shown a door, but don’t go in for
different reasons. I look back and think, ‘Maybe it was good that I
just didn’t know better.’ Back then, there were few native people here
on campus. I was fortunate enough to have non-native professors take an
interest in me,” she says.

It’s fortunate she decided to go through the doors she was
shown—especially those involving poetry.

“What’s more surprising for me is the response to my work,
especially non-natives. They relate and find connection to what I write
about—family, the landscape, the history of the people—and
feel it relates to the environment.”

Steve Cox, who retired as director of the UA Press in 1998, says the
Sun Tracks series is not only a source of pride, but a good example of
the success an academic press can have when it chooses to focus on
regional interests. Cox says he learned about the appeal of regional
interests when he was a student at the University of Oklahoma studying
English. He found himself in its press’ building surrounded by
books.

“I fell in love,” Cox recalls.

The director of the Oklahoma press built a strong program by
focusing on the West and its importance to Oklahoma. Eventually, Cox
says, he interned at the press there, and when he was hired to lead the
UA Press in the early ’80s, he decided he’d use the model he learned
about as a student.

Conrad says it was Cox who helped the UA Press refocus on scholarly
books and general titles that focused on the university’s backyard.
These emphases transformed the UA Press into one of the best nonprofit
publishers in the Southwest.

Cox came to the UA Press with other ideas, too. Because he got his
start as an intern, he wanted the press to have an intern program,
which still exists today.

“Many of those interns became publishers working in New York,” he
says.

He also brought the UA Press into the computer age. In 1983, Cox
discovered that the press still maintained hand ledgers.

“The press couldn’t grow with that system. Some were scared to death
of computers. It was quite a time. It was hard work to make that
change,” he remembers.

He also remembers certain books that hold a special place in his
heart. The Space Science Series, a special series on the solar system,
is one example. But he also enjoyed books that came from biology and
environmental sciences that focused on what Cox refers to as the
“critters of the Southwest.”

Beyond a regional reflection, Cox says what’s important about any
university press is the scholarship.

“It’s not just about work that is important. Other publishers can do
that, but university presses offer work you can’t get in any other way:
a stamp of approval by scholars who lead their fields, by people who
care about their work. … University presses do it in a way no other
house can,” he says.

While science is one of the UA Press’ main focuses, books that focus
on Southern Arizona have been some of the house’s most successful
works. Poet and UA professor Richard Shelton’s Going Back to
Bisbee, published by the UA Press in 1992, is about a day trip to
Bisbee that unfolds into a story about the area’s history, the
environment and the poet’s life. The book continues to be one of the UA
Press’ best-sellers, so far selling more than 30,000 copies.

“Technically, I think it is partly because I hit the audience I was
aiming for: people who have come to this area or live in this area, but
know very little about the desert and are eager to know more, (and are)
unwilling or unable to read heavy scholarly works about it. The book is
an easy and entertaining read but also contains a good deal of
information presented in a nontechnical, often humorous way,” he wrote
in an e-mail about the book’s success.

Shelton says the book came about because he was approached by
Gregory McNamee, then an editor at the press, who asked him to write a
nonfiction book about Southern Arizona. The book won the Western States
Book Award and the One Book Arizona Award.

“Also, I think it is successful because it is basically a book
filled with little stories, and I love to tell stories. Also, they tell
me (it’s been a success) because I have a sense of humor and enjoy
poking fun at myself,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Shelton’s reputation as a writer rests in his poetry—which he
has laid in the hands of the University of Pittsburgh Press since 1969.
Shelton has published about a half-dozen books of poetry with the
University of Pittsburgh while publishing his nonfiction work with the
UA Press, including 2007’s acclaimed Crossing the Yard: 30 Years as
a Prison Volunteer, about Shelton’s experience running writing
workshops in prison.

Shelton says he feels lucky to have two strong presses publishing
his work.

“Years ago, when the (UA) Press was trying to match a huge challenge
grant, I did a considerable amount of fundraising for the press,
because I believe in what it is doing. I know of only three university
presses that have reputations for publishing books by Western writers
about the West. The University of Arizona may be the best of the three.
The range of their work is enormous, and they work hard at publicity.
It’s a great group of people to work with.”

Shelton says the UA Press staff nominates books for awards and
aggressively promotes their books. For example, staffers nominated
Crossing the Yard for the Independent Publisher Book Award,
which it won.

UA Press editor-in-chief Allyson Carter confirms that the press has
made a concerted effort to nominate writers for awards, especially
within the last few years, thanks in large part to Holly Schaffer, the
UA Press’ publicity manager. One recent award that was particularly
exciting was the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry given to
Juan Felipe Herrera for his book Half of the World in Light, one
of the newest books in the press’ Latino and Latina literary series,
Camino del Sol.

Carter says taking pleasure in the success of the authors and the
books is especially gratifying when working at an academic press.

“In a commercial press, you really have to think of the bottom line.
… For us, the bottom line is important, but really it’s about the
scholarship, to get that information out there to the scholarly
community, and that gives us a little bit of freedom to not have to
worry as much about selling copies.”

Take a new book from 80-year-old author Mary Ellen Barnes as an
example. Her book, The Road to Mount Lemmon: A Father, a Family and
the Making of Summerhaven, published by the UA Press this year, is
about her father, Tony Zimmerman, who developed the Mount Lemmon
community, and about Barnes’ childhood there.

Barnes says she’s been writing for more than 20 years and started
The Road to Mount Lemmon in 2000, but work stalled after the
2003 Aspen Fire. Watching the efforts of firefighters and seeing Mount
Lemmon homeowners rebuild inspired her to write Forged by Fire,
a self-published effort she put out in 2005. Once done, she went back
to writing her childhood story and turned to the UA Press.

“I think (the UA Press) considered me, because my other book won (a
Pima County Public Library Southwest Books of the Year Award) in 2005,
but at first, it was rejected,” Barnes recalls of The Road to Mount
Lemmon.

When the UA Press is considering a book, it turns to other writers
and scholars to read the manuscripts. Barnes’ book was given to three
people: two said no, and one said yes. Barnes says she decided to take
a close look at the criticism and rewrite the book.

“I took their suggestions, and in seven months, I gave them a new
book,” she explains.

This book got approved, and Barnes has been riding a wave of
signings, events and interviews ever since. What inspires her, she
says, is the motivation she felt while writing the book: to tell her
father’s story.

Beyond inspiring regional books, the UA Press is also entering new
areas, Carter says. One new project she is particularly excited about
is an environmental science-law and policy series.

“It’s a substantial series, and it’s also something that’s exciting
because it’s taking us in a slightly new direction,” she says. “It’s
one example of being able to help bring new ideas out there through
book projects. It’s also a way I can be creative in this field and be
proud of our work.”

The UA Press grew out of the Anthropology Department in 1959 as part
of the university’s commitment to that field. Today, those studies
remain a core of what the press publishes, but new directions are
keeping the UA Press relevant.

New technologies—such as the Amazon Kindle and the
iPod—are also a UA Press concern as the house celebrates its 50th
birthday.

“Electronic formats are a chief focus of mine in this time period,”
Conrad says. “We need to be offering books in a variety of formats. I
don’t know exactly how that will take place, but in most scholarly
communities, there is a real desire to make that scholarship as widely
available as possible.”

One trend is that libraries are decreasing print materials and
increasing digital material.

“The electronic dissemination of scholarship—it’s one of the
new technological developments in the publishing industry,” Conrad
says.

Another new technology is the Espresso Book Machine, which can print
books on demand in a bookstore in four minutes. Conrad says she hopes
an Espresso comes to the UA campus, because she wants the UA Press to
be part of that.

Of course, new technology means change; books in electronic formats
will cost less to publish, for example.

“Expenses remain, so I don’t think the costs are going to go as low
as some people think,” Conrad says.

To help the UA Press plan for these changes, the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation recently awarded the house a $282,000, two-year planning
grant along with five other academic presses to work on digital
publishing in archaeology.

“We do need this from foundations like Mellon to help scholarly
presses address the future,” Conrad says. “My biggest hope is that the
press will still be here 50 years from now, provoking conversation
about the place we live, the world we’re in and putting scholarly
positions forward.

“My job is to position us to continue to not just be relevant, but
essential for a good understanding of the Southwest, anthropology, and
indigenous studies. I want to be part of the conversation.”

This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.