The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. They publish work that has been reviewed by scholars in the field. They pro ...

publishing

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and poetry under its imprint, Terrace Books; and serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the

Upper Midwest The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wi ...

, and the

Great Lakes region The Great Lakes region of Northern America is a binational Canadian– American region centered on the Great Lakes that includes the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and the Ca ...

. UW Press annually awards the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, and The Four Lakes Prize in Poetry. The press was founded in 1936 in Madison and is one of more than 120 member presses in the

Association of University Presses The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) is an association of nonprofit, mostly, but not exclusively, North American university presses. It is based in New York City. Until December 2017, it was known as the Association of American Univ ...

. The Journals Division was established in 1965. The press employs approximately 25 full and part-time staff, produces 40 to 60 new books a year, and publishes 13 journals. It also distributes books and some annual journals for selected smaller publishers. The press is a unit of the Graduate School of the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

and serves the university's overall mission of research, instruction, and outreach beyond the university.

Books division

Since its first book appeared in 1937, the press has published and distributed more than 3,000 titles. The press has more than 1,400 titles currently in print, including: *scholarly books: American studies and modern American history, African studies, anthropology, Classical studies, dance history, environmental studies, film/cinema history, gay & lesbian studies, modern European and Irish history, Jewish studies, Slavic and Eastern European studies, Southeast Asian Studies, and other subjects *regional books: Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and the Great Lakes region *books of general interest: natural history, poetry, biography, fiction, food, travel. In 2003, the press acquired the publishing company ''Popular Press'', which specialized in works on

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

.Popular Press
at UWPress.Wisc.edu; retrieved August 16, 2018

Notable authors and awards

Notable authors published by the University of Wisconsin Press include Rigoberto González,

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (January 13, 1940 – June 3, 2025) was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. A pioneering figure in LGBTQ and especially gay literature after the Stonewall riots, he wrote with ra ...

, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Olena Kalytiak Davis,

Alden Jones Alden Jones (born 1972) is an American writer and educator. She is the author of memoirs ''The Wanting Was a Wilderness'' (2020) and ''The Blind Masseuse'' (2013) and the short story collection ''Unaccompanied Minors'' (2014). ''The Blind Masseu ...

Lesléa Newman Lesléa Newman (born November 5, 1955, in Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the ...

, Trebor Healey, Floyd Skloot, Kelly Cherry,

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 H ...

, and Michael Carroll. The press has also published new editions and translations of work by

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

, and

Djuna Barnes Djuna Barnes ( ; June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel '' Nightwood'' (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist lite ...

. Books and authors published by the press have won The American Book Award from the

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

, the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary Foundation, Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literatur ...

, the

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is an American literary award presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain ex ...

Independent Publisher Book Awards The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also styled as the IPPY Awards, are a set of annual literary awards for independently published books. They are the longest-running unaffiliated contest open exclusively to independent presses. The IPPY Aw ...

, NEA Literature Fellowships, the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

Publishing Triangle The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards prog ...

Awards, and other honors.

Journals division

*'' African Economic History'' *'' Arctic Anthropology'' *''

Contemporary Literature Contemporary literature is literature which is generally set after World War II and coincident with contemporary history. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance and others. History Literary movements are always contemp ...

'' *''Ecological Restoration'' *''Ghana Studies'' *''History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals'' *''

Journal of Human Resources ''The Journal of Human Resources'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering empirical microeconomics. It was established in 1965 and is published by The University of Wisconsin Press. The editor-in-chief is Anna Aizer (Brown Univers ...

'' *'' Land Economics'' *''Landscape Journal'' *'' Luso-Brazilian Review'' *''Monatshefte'' *'' Native Plants Journal'' *''Scandinavian Studies''

Controversies

University of Wisconsin Press joined The

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercial ...

trade organization in the

Hachette v. Internet Archive ''Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive'', No. 20-cv-4160 (JGK), 664 F.Supp.3d 370 (S.D.N.Y. 2023), WL 2623787 (S.D.N.Y. 2023), was a Legal case, case in which the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York deter ...

lawsuit which resulted in the removal of access to over 500,000 books from global readers. https://publishers.org/who-we-are/our-members/

References

External links