Video The year of conferencing virtually January 21, 2021 For editors and publishers, conferences offer the opportunity to present our lists as a whole to the members of the disciplines in which we are embedded, each title a star in its larger constellation. Read More
Essay MLK Day reflections on diversifying publishing January 17, 2021 Publishing itself is an act of mutuality, a series of symbiotic relationships ranging from idea and page, to author and publisher, to bookseller and reader. The garments we create—books—are shaped by current knowledge, imagination, and tools, and are also often cloaked by or interwoven with fabrics of history. Read More
Interview By Design | Books about books, or the cataloging of ideas November 27, 2020 Sales catalogs have a noble lineage, one that an academic press would gladly embrace. The first catalog was published in Venice in 1498 by Aldus Manutius, founder of the Aldine Press. Read More
Essay Six impossible things November 12, 2020 In the Wonderland of her mind, Alice laughed. “One can’t believe impossible things,” she said to the White Queen. The Queen observed that Alice simply lacked discipline and practice, boasting that she sometimes believed “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Read More
Essay Skills for Scholars: The new tools of the trade August 18, 2020 Any discussion of scholarly tools at Princeton University Press naturally begins with a reverent nod to the printing press—for obvious reasons but also in subtler ways. Since 1911, the Press’s headquarters have been housed in a timeless Collegiate Gothic building (later named for benefactor Charles Scribner), designed by Ernest Flagg and sitting at the edge of Princeton’s campus. Read More
Essay A paean to the paperback July 30, 2020 My passion for paperbacks began back in the year 2000 with my first job in book publishing. Prior to that, as a philosophy graduate student, I was enamored of finding hardback editions, ideally jacketed, of the philosophers whose works I was reading. Read More
Essay Promised Words July 10, 2020 In the early morning, before my 2-year-old and 7-year-old wake up, I sneak down the creaky stairs, swinging slightly on the bannisters to keep my weight from announcing my descent. My younger child seems to have impossibly sensitive hearing, and so I crunch my granola on the couch as quietly as possible, while I begin work-related email and reading. Read More
Essay Keep cool and keep writing June 21, 2020 Editors, amongst many other tasks, are daily faced with the challenge of persuading or pressuring authors to write or finish books. When COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders went into effect and I found myself, in addition to being an editor, also suddenly a home-schooling teacher, little did I know that those skills might be transferable. Read More
Essay By Design | The 2020 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show June 18, 2020 A book’s design communicates to readers before the book even has a chance to. It tells us something essential. The most successful book design goes a step further: it compels us to hold the book in our hands for a little while, turn it over, leaf through it, and admire its form. Read More
Essay Recording audiobooks under lockdown June 11, 2020 When lockdown began to take effect in March 2020, publishers and authors across the world had to make rapid adjustments to our plans for our books, not only to keep publishing, but also to keep our colleagues and partners safe and healthy. Read More
Essay When ‘Take Your Child to Work Day’ is every day April 23, 2020 Take your child to work day has been a festive time at PUP in recent years, with a free popup kids bookstore and ‘open office hours’ with our director Christie Henry, who provides the kids of PUP with a generous supply of publishing advice and donuts. Read More
Essay Remembering William B. Helmreich March 31, 2020 I am very sorry to be sharing the terrible news that our beloved Bill Helmreich, CCNY professor and prolific author, passed away on March 29, 2020. Read More
Video Christie Henry on the Press’s modern mission March 19, 2020 Christie Henry, the first woman to direct Princeton University Press, was recently on PCTV to discuss the Press’s new initiatives, long-term mission and vision, and how academic presses collaborate and compete in the publishing world. Read More
Essay For the beauty of invisibility January 06, 2020 Human beings are naturally visual creatures. Our eyes, capable of counting single photons, have been optimized over evolutionary time to the very limits of the laws of physics. Read More
Essay How to Build Community November 06, 2019 In the pages and impact of each book can be found the work of as many as 35 different individuals—from editorial assistant to metadata manager—and that doesn’t include readers and listeners, which increase the individuals involved in a book in exponential ways. Read More
