UWSP student publishing house to launch newest fiction work
For the Metro Wire
A student-staffed publishing company at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point will launch its newest book, a collection of short stories, with several activities the week of Dec. 3.
Cornerstone Press will release “Nothing to Lose” by Wisconsin author Kim Suhr at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 6, in the Alumni Room of the Dreyfus University Center. Open to the public, the event will include live music, refreshments and featured speakers, including the author.
In addition, Cornerstone Press will host a literary trivia night at 7:30-9 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Room 116 of the College of Professional Studies. Suhr will also be the guest speaker and a featured reader at the university’s annual Writer’s Workshop for high school students on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
“Nothing to Lose” is part of the Legacy Series of fiction and non-fiction books published each fall. It will be available for purchase at the launch event, at Boswell Books in Milwaukee and online at Amazon.com or www.uwsp.edu/cornerstone, along with the publishing house’s previous works. For more information, visit @uwspcornerstonepress on Facebook.
Featuring characters carved out of the Wisconsin landscape, “Nothing to Lose” showcases a region full of real people who are less than perfect, plagued with doubts and always reaching.
“Suhr doesn’t invent characters; rather she channels them,” said author Sandra Scofield, a National Book Award finalist. “She finds a perfect balance between the plainspoken thoughts of her unlikely heroes and the exquisitely chiseled prose of her own voice.”
A resident of Wales, Wis., Suhr is the author of “Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots of a Novice Mom” and the director of Red Oak Writing, where she teaches youth camps, leads writers’ roundtables and provides manuscript critiques. Her work has appeared in Midwest Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, and others, and she is on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Writer’s Association. She holds a master’s degree in fiction from the Solstice Program at Pine Manor College in Boston, where she was the 2013 Dennis Lehane Fellow.
Cornerstone Press, one of only four undergraduate, student-staffed presses in the United States, was established at UW-Stevens Point in 1984 and operates with the support of the English Department. The students take Editing and Publishing classes offered in the fall and spring, taught by Ross Tangedal, an assistant professor of English. The class offers them hands-on experiences in all aspects of publishing, from choosing manuscripts to editing, marketing the finished product and selling it online.
“We pride ourselves on nurturing talent, developing close relationships with writers worldwide, teaching the art and process of bookmaking and mentoring those students interested in careers in editing and publishing,” said Tangedal.