News

We are pleased to announce that Catherine Cocks is joining our acquisitions team as Senior Acquisition Editor, starting February 15. She started her career in academic publishing at SAR Press, the publishing arm of the School for Advanced Research, where she established the cutting-edge series in Global Indigenous Politics, among other accomplishments. She worked most recently at the University of Iowa Press, where she is currently Editorial Director. Please join us in welcoming Catherine to the press!

The University of Washington Press has five selected entries in the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) 2017 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. Congratulations to the designers, our Editorial, Design, and Production department, and all involved!

Nine University of Washington Press authors will be participating in the 12^th Annual Literary Voices event on May 3, 2017. Annie Proulx is this year’s keynote speaker.

Reviews and Interviews

The Times Literary Supplement reviews Ice Bear by Michael Engelhard: “Engelhard has an apt and unusual background for a book such as this. . . . Among the strengths of Ice Bear is its grasp of the rituals by which humans have always aspired to draw the strength of the polar bear into themselves.”—Mark Abley

The Spectator also reviews the book: “[A] beautifully illustrated, hugely engaging book. . . . For all its nightmare-haunting power, however, the aspect of the polar bear that really makes it an icon of the age is its vulnerability . . . . Another merit of the book is the author’s willingness to track these themes to their origins.”—Mark Cocker

Six UW Press titles get listings in the Seattle Times round-up of essential natural history titles for the new to Seattle. Other authors and friends of the press including David B. Williams, David Montgomery, Robert Michael Pyle, and Lynda Mapes also get mentions.

David Wilkins, coauthor with Shelley Wilkins of the forthcoming book Dismembered (June 2017), is interviewed in a feature article about tribal disenrollment in the New York Times Magazine.

Popular Mechanics interviews James Longhurst and mentions Bike Battles in an article about urban cycling.

New Books

Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, Second Edition
By Coll Thrush
With a new preface by the author
Foreword by William Cronon

This updated edition of Native Seattle brings the indigenous story to the present day and puts the movement of recognizing Seattle’s Native past into a broader context. Native Seattle focuses on the experiences of local indigenous communities on whose land Seattle grew, accounts of Native migrants to the city and the development of a multi-tribal urban community, as well as the role Native Americans have played in the narrative of Seattle.

The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China
By Dorothy Ko

An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface on which texts and images are carved. As such, the inkstone has been entangled with elite masculinity and the values of wen (culture, literature, civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for more than a millennium. However, for such a ubiquitous object in East Asia, it is virtually unknown in the Western world. Ko  explores the hidden history and cultural significance of the inkstone and puts the stonecutters and artisans on center stage.

New in Paperback

Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography
By David B. Williams

“Williams does a marvelous job of evoking the cityscape that used to be. He clues us in to the spirit of civic ambition that drove Seattle’s geographical transformations. He methodically chronicles the stages by which its regrade, canal and landfill projects were accomplished. And he’s meticulous about placing his readers on present-day street corners where they can, with some sleight of mind, glimpse the hills, lake shores and tide flats that vanished.”–Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times

Proving Grounds: Militarized Landscapes, Weapons Testing, and the Environmental Impact of U.S. Bases
Edited by Edwin A. Martini

“Historian Edwin Martini has assembled a fine cast of scholars for examining the environmental impact and legacy of US military bases during the twentieth century. . . . The editor and his team are to be commended for highlighting the issues and furthering informed debate.”–Christopher M. Rein, Environmental History

Empire Maker: Aleksandr Baranov and Russian Colonial Expansion into Alaska and Northern California
By Kenneth N. Owens with Alexander Yu. Petrov

“Transcends the limits of biography through some stellar archival work and by letting Baranov’s story recede at key times behind the larger epic of Russian America. The authors have managed to give us both a very useful picture of life as a merchant in nineteenth-century Russia as well as a new, very accessible general history of the colony. . . . [An] excellent biography.”–Ryan Jones, The Russian Review

Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West
By Jen Corrinne Brown

“This is a well-researched, richly detailed history of trout and trout fishing in the Mountain West that, as the author promises, ‘overturns the biggest fish story ever told.'”–John Gierach, Wall Street Journal

Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid
By Daniel Martin Varisco
Wtih a new foreword by the author

Since its original publication in 2007, Reading Orientalism has been the preeminent critical assessment of the late Edward Said’s seminal 1978 book Orientalism.

“Varisco’s book makes for exhilarating reading.”–Times Literary Supplement

Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in Shanxi
By Anthony E. Clark

“[A] welcome addition to what one hopes will become a growing scholarly discussion on the development of Christianity in Shanxi. . . . The author delivers his account in an easy, empathetic style, reflecting the autobiographical nature of the more unique archival material he has explored. . . . Helps the reader to move beyond simplistic understandings of the actors as Chinese savages and/or Western barbarians.”–Andrew T. Kaiser, China Quarterly

Book of the Month Giveaways

Enter to win one of this month’s picks! (Open to US residents only.)

1. Vagrants and Accidentals by Kevin Craft (Entry form)
2.  Encountering the Stranger: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue edited by Leonard Grob and John K. Roth (Entry form)

The giveaways will close on on Friday, February 10, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. PT. The giveaway winners will be notified by Monday, February 13, 2017.

Please contact Casey LaVela with any questions at kclavela [at] uw [dot] edu.

Distributed for Hallie Ford Museum of Art

Louis Bunce: Dialogue with Modernism
By Roger Hull

This richly illustrated book explores and assesses the art and life of the iconic Pacific Northwest modernist painter and printmaker who engaged with American and European modern art from Surrealism to Post-Modernism.

Exhibition on view:
January 21 – March 26, 2017
Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Distributed for Lynx House Press

Swimming in Hong Kong
By Stephanie Hong

These award winning stories cross borders–taking place in Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States, and exploring issues of intersectional identity. Han’s characters wrestle with their relationships and access to spaces, negotiating racial, national, and gender boundaries.

Events

FEBRUARY

February 3 at 7 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, Lopez Bookshop (Local Writers Read with SHARK REEF Literary Magazine), Lopez Island, WA

February 5 from 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., John K. Roth (coeditor), Losing Trust in the World, “Elie Wiesel Memorial Symposium: A Celebration of Wiesel’s Life and Work,” Florida Atlantic University (University Theatre, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus), Boca Raton, FL

February 6 at 7:30 p.m., Kevin Craft, Vagrants and Accidentals, The Writer’s Center, with Rod Jellema and Friends, Bethesda, MD

February 7 at 7 p.m., Ana Maria Spagna, Reclaimers, with Mark Rozema, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

February 7 at 6:30 p.m., Margaret Willson, Seawomen of Iceland, Pratt Museum, Homer, AK

February 12 at 3 p.m., Bob Shimabukuro, Born in Seattle, and Mira Shimabukuro, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

February 12 at 1 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, Orange County Agriculture and Nikkei Heritage Museum, Day of Remembrance keynote, Cal State Fullerton, Fullerton, CA

February 15 at 7:30 p.m., Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum, Bird in Hand (11 E 33^rd St.), Baltimore, MD

February 15 at 5:30 p.m., Thomas Crow, No Idols (Power Publications), The Kitchen (512 West 19^th Street), New York, NY

February 16 at 5 p.m., Darren Speece, Defending Giants, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO

February 17 at 6 p.m., Margaret Willson, Seawomen of Iceland, Center for Wooden Boats (Third Friday Speaker Series), Seattle, WA

February 20 from 5:30 – 8 p.m., Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum, International Studies Symposium, Towson State University, Towson, MD

February 21 at 2 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, BookTree, Kirkland, WA

February 23 at 1 p.m., Sylvanna Falcón, Power Interrupted, University of Delaware, Newark, DE

February 23 from 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m., Migrating the Black Body, edited by Leigh Raiford & Heike Raphael-Hernandez, University Press Books, Berkeley, CA

February 23 at 7 p.m., David Stevenson, Warnings against Myself, Feathered Friends, Seattle, WA

February 25 at 4 p.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, University of Washington Intellectual House, “Sacred Breath: Writing and Storytelling”

February 26 at 4 p.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, Village Books, Bellingham, WA

February 27 at 7 p.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, Third Place Books, Seward Park, Seattle

February 27 at 6 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, High Desert Museum, Bend, OR

MARCH

March 1 at noon, Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum, Center for German and European Studies, Brandeis University (Faculty Lounge), Waltham, MA

March 1 at 7 p.m., David Williams, Seattle Walks, Seattle Public Library with Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, WA

March 3 at 7 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Humanities Washington and the Jefferson County Museum of Art, Port Townsend Historic City Council Chambers, 540 Water Street, Port Townsend, WA

March 7 at 6 p.m., Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Pritzker Military Museum & Library lecture and livestream (Turbulence in the Pacific: Japanese-U.S. Relations During World War I), Chicago, IL ($10; Free for members)

March 10 at 7 p.m., Kevin Craft, Vagrants and Accidentals, Open Books, Seattle, WA

March 11 at 12:30 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, Tucson Festival of Books, Tucson, AZ

March 11 at 1 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Kitsap Regional Library, Port Orchard, WA

March 15 at 5:30 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Kitsap Regional Library, Downtown Bremerton, WA

March 15 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, University Book Store, Seattle, WA

March 15 at 7 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, with Sydney Blaine, Jack Sheppard, Joan & Dorothy Laurance, Sense of Place lecture series, Columbia Center for the Arts, Hood River, OR