“Yeah, so, everything in the book, all the artwork (we have some fantastic artwork in the poetry book), the cover design, editing, everything was done by UA students, which is really neat,” said Paul Albano. He is a senior instructor and the associate director of creative writing for the Department of English at UA and one of the faculty members who oversee Red Rook Press, a student led publication house out of the University of Alabama. “I always joke to them about how they're never going to be able to see a book the same way again, after you get a sense of all the decisions. You know, when you go to Barnes & Noble and you browse your books, you are often not aware of all that goes into that,” he said. Albano explained the origins of Red Rock press. “Yeah, so we started in September of 2022. The idea came from our department chair, David Deutsch. He emailed me and asked if I would be interested in helping startup a student run press.”
Red Rook Press in its second year. Last year, they published a book of poetry and a novel, and they will do the same this year and repress a book from last year as well. The press allows students to experience what is known as experiential learning, giving students an opportunity to apply some of the things that they are learning in the classroom. They found an unexpected demand for publishing. Students Skyla Pearson and Anna Kate Baxter head the editing teams for this year’s novel and poetry book and helped start the press last year. They remember that first interest meeting. “That meeting was jam packed,” Pearson said, “...jam packed. I think we're all surprised at how much of an interest students had in a publishing house for the University of Alabama.” “There was not a seat left,” Baxter said, “Everyone was standing. There was probably more than 50 people in the little English committee room meeting.”
David Deutsch is the Chair of the Department of English at the University of Alabama. He was put into the unique position of being able to make this happen. “So when I was Director of Undergraduate Studies,” he said, “we had a lot of students coming in that were interested in courses on publishing, courses on editing, courses on how to make books and so we offered a lot of those opportunities or we started putting more of those more and more of those courses onto the books into the catalog and when I became the department chair, Dean Messina very kindly gave me some discretionary funds and so, I thought, well, we've got faculty with experience kind of in the publishing industry, why not start a press so the students can take what they're learning in the classroom, and put those skills to work in real life and I ran the idea by Paul, and a couple of other faculty members, and it really just took off from there.” The result? “It went beyond my expectations,” Dr. Deutsch said. “I had thought the first year was going to be a trial run, and we'll see how it goes. We were committed to extend well beyond the first year, but it was a success right off right off the bat.”
It's the students that have created that success more than anyone. Travis Turner is a faculty member that oversees the promotions team. “I can’t stress enough,” Turner said, “how important the students are when it comes to just their commitment to the product. You know, even though me and Paul work with them as much as we can, you know, it’s really their thing.” Weekly meetings are done with minimal oversight from faculty members. It is through these meetings that they are able to hammer out differences of opinion and move forward with difficult decisions. Turner speaks on the importance of these meetings for the promotions team. “Tuesday nights they’ll have their meeting. They’ll usually bring their posts in,” Turner said. “You know, we have a Tik-Tok team, a Twitter team, an Instagram team and they all work kind of independently during the week creating content and then they will come like on a Tuesday, and they will kind of sit down for an hour or two and review each other’s work.”
Maya Mungo is a sophomore at UA who heads the promotions team and has since her freshman year. “I'm currently double majoring in marketing and creative media,” Mungo said. She introduces this year’s books. “So, last year we did two. It was When the Flowers Breathe by Attalia Rose which is Mo Edwards, that's her pen name, and The Blood, the Love, and the Uninterpretable by Abby Armstrong. This year we're doing Bonfires & Other Vigils by Colleen Alles, Catfish Pond Woman, by Bianca McCarty, and we're doing a special edition of When the Flowers Breathe. We’re re-releasing Moe's book with new content and recipes and an interview all this extra stuff, new art and everything.”
Paul Albano spoke on the structure of the press. “We have six different editorial departments. Some work on four or five of them, some just do one…we have a sound department… we're going to start podcasting soon. We do design, we have a promotions team, acquisitions team, content editing...”
Albano tells me they are planning to publish outside of UA this year. The poetry book that was chosen is from a graduate student from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has no affiliation with the University of Alabama. “So, we were kind of excited to do that,” Albano said. “We're hoping to be to be seen as kind of a national press, we still focus on people who have university affiliation, but we had submissions from students all across the country... we had a student from South Africa...”
“Poetry is life if you ask me,” said Skyla Pearson. “I actually love reading it more than I love writing it and I've come to learn that I love editing it too. So, thanks to Red Rook, I've discovered other paths and has opened up other avenues of careers and writing because I'm an English major and I want to be a writer, that I hadn't thought about.” “I love storytelling and hearing all different stories.” Anna Kate Baxter said, “and I think everyone has something worth telling. There's a lot of different ways you can be involved. It's not just reading and writing or English majors. We have people with marketing majors, public relations, our website team, we have computer science majors… Also, we're looking to expand more of like the business side of it and grow like a business team.” “We just opened up a voice acting section for reading our manuscripts for like eBook and stuff like that, of that nature,” Pearson explained, “and, like I said, we just started this but that's a really cool avenue that a lot of people can get in that not many people know about right now. So, other than that, we have a website team. If you're into coding come over here and try that out or if you just want to design stuff, we have an art team. I mean, there's just so many avenues to this publishing house. I believe in it so much. So, if students are listening, I just want to encourage them to come to Red Rock Press and find a place for yourself.”
You can find more information about Red Rook Press from their website, Red Rook press.org. The Red Rook press will be having its annual launch party for this year's books later this month Tuscaloosa. check their website for details.
Ernest & Hadley is an underwriter of APR.
