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"These are poems about what it is to share language, to share blood, the complexities, the limits, of what it is to share a connection that defies language. 'Haunt me,' Tseng implores. 'I want to re-/ Member you.'”—Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe
Crafted with lines from her late father’s letters, Jennifer Tseng’s Thanks for Letting Us Know You Are Alive is a portrait of an immigrant, a rootless person whose unspoken loss—that of his native geography, family, traditions, language—underlies every word.
“This book gives the reader a sobering look at the large—some 100,000—veteran prison population and at some of the reasons for it. Strongly recommended.”—Tom Werzyn, The VVA Veteran
Since the American War in Vietnam, the number of veterans who have been incarcerated after their military service has steadily increased, with over 100,000 veterans in prison today. Identifying the previously unrecognized connections between American wars and mass incarceration, Prisoners after War reaches across lines of race, class, and gender to record the untold history of incarcerated veterans over the past six decades. Having conducted dozens of oral history interviews, Jason A. Higgins traces the lifelong effects of war, inequality, disability, and mental illness, and explores why hundreds of thousands of veterans, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, were caught up in the carceral system.
Hear a sample of Food Margins by Cathy Stanton in her book trailer
In a food industry shaped by the abundance, cheapness, and convenience that giant corporations can offer, small-scale ventures struggle to survive, as anthropologist Cathy Stanton discovered when she joined the effort to save a small food co-op in a former mill town in western Massachusetts. On the margins of the dominant system, Stanton found herself reckoning with its deep racial and class inequities, and learning that making real change requires a fierce commitment to community and a willingness to change herself as well.
Part memoir and part history lesson, Food Margins traces the tangled economic and political histories of the plantation, the factory, and the supermarket through the life of one New England town.
“Almost any paragraph can read as a poem, and every story as a tiny epic, elliptical and suggestive, constructed of gaps and white spaces, attending as carefully to what’s omitted as to what is directly expressed.”—Catherine Gammon, Necessary Fiction
Inventive, dark, and absurd, the stories in The Long Swim capture Terese Svoboda’s clear-eyed, wry angle on the world: a place of violence and uncertainty but also wild beauty, adventure, and love both lasting and ephemeral.
Announcing the 2024 Juniper Literary Prize Winners!
The University of Massachusetts Press and MFA for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are thrilled to announce the 2024 winners of the Juniper Literary Prizes in Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry.
News & Features
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In Conversation with Saara Myrene Raappana and Jennifer Tseng, Winners of the 2023 Juniper Prize for Poetry
This April, we’re celebrating the 2023 Juniper Prize for Poetry Winners, which publish April 1, 2024. One of our marketing interns, Hailey Furilla, crafted the questions for the poets. Saara...
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Kathy Greeley
Climate Justice and Public Health
Rajini Srikanth, Linda Thompson
Conifers of the New England–Acadian Forest
Steve Keating
Cathy Stanton
John M. Kinder, Jason A. Higgins
Myra Mendible
Benjamin Cooper
Michael D. Gambone
Lisa J. McLeod
Mass Humanities Clemente Course
Faye Halpern
Gregory M. Pfitzer