Wednesday, October 01, 2008

New fiction imprint at Northern Illinois University Press

This is from a recent edition of Publisher's Weekly. I'll try to get more news on it:

Northern Illinois To Launch Fiction Imprint
by Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 9/26/2008 1:19:00 PM

Northern Illinois University Press in Dekalb, Ill. is launching a new regional fiction imprint, Switchgrass Books. NIU said Switchgrass is “committed to enhancing the cultural landscape of the Midwest” by focusing on literary fiction set in or about the Midwest and written by authors with significant ties to the region. According to Alex Schwartz, NIU Press/Switchgrass Books director, agented manuscripts will not be accepted for consideration, in order to provide both emerging and established writers a venue to “have their Midwestern voices heard.” Two books will be released under the Switchgrass imprint each season, with the first release scheduled for fall 2009. NIU Press will continue to focus its nonfiction line of books on U.S. history, Russian studies, transportation, religion, and regional studies.

Cool piece of NIU trivia: One of its graduates is Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson! NIU also boasts Dennis Hastert, and Tim Bennett, the president of Harpo Productions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Also Paul Sereno, paleontologist, University of Chicago. I heard him speak a few times and he argued his insight into adjusting our image of the dinosaur was informed by his work in art at NIU.