UL Press

01/22/2025

Link in comments. On this snow day in south Louisiana, we are pleased to announce She Danced with a Redfish: A Play in Two Acts, coming January 28. From New Orleans’s vast mythology springs this play featuring Marie Laveau, a young free woman of color, as she is transformed from a Catholic bride to an active participant in African spiritual traditions in the pre-Civil War French Quarter. When the Saint-Domingue priestess Sanité Dédé performs a midnight ritual cleansing in Marie’s cottage, the unexpected return of Marie’s husband, Jacques Paris, disrupts the ceremony, ultimately leading to her awakening to African mysticism. The magic of the Vieux Carré is brought to life in this tale of love, betrayal, and empowerment. She Danced with a Redfish pays tribute to the African traditions that shaped New Orleans and still reverberate in and beyond Congo Square.

Author Carolyn Nur Wistrand is an award-winning playwright and educator. Her plays have been staged in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Savannah, Atlanta, Flint, Omaha, Detroit, and New Orleans. A recipient of the MACC/NEA Award, a NEH Summer Fellowship, and winner of the Mario-Fratti-Fred Newman International Playwriting Competition, she is a professor of English and Drama at Dillard University in New Orleans

(We are grateful to the UL Lafayette student who built the snowman we used as a stand for the book in this photo — see comments.)

01/14/2025

Hi there - We're hiring here at UL Press!

UL Press is seeking an undergraduate UL Lafayette student worker. In this role, the student will assist the Sales and Marketing office with logistics and supply chain management.

This is a great student job for someone interested in learning the nuts and bolts of how a business works.

Areas of work include:

- Inventory management
- Purchase order fulfillment
- Returns processing
- Using eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and QuickBooks
- Sales events

This offer may be extended through the 2025-2026 academic year depending on strong performance and the availability of funds. (UL Press does not offer this position during the summer.) Because UL press sustains its operations through book sales, the student selected for this role may take pride in directly supporting the production of new books through their work.

Visit our website here: www.ulpress.org
Interested? Email us with your resume!
[email protected]

UL Press

01/10/2025

This Sunday at the Lafayette Museum!

12/19/2024

Things are merry and bright here at our holiday open house at the Roy House. It’s always special to have a visit from Ms. Betty Lowry, who spent many days during her childhood at the Roy House with her great uncle J. Arthur Roy and her great aunt, “Tante Ya Ya.” Here she is with her granddaughter Julia Lowry and singing a French song from her childhood with Professor Emeritus Dr. Barry Ancelet.

12/11/2024

Link in comments. New release! Francis Pavy: Forty Years showcases four decades of vibrant artwork, blending contemporary perspectives with deep-rooted local traditions of French Louisiana. Pavy's work captures the mosaic of regional storytelling through bold colors and vernacular imagery. The book features insightful essays by Ben Hickey and Nick Spitzer, offering a deeper exploration of Pavy's artistic journey.

Francis X. Pavy, born in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Mardi Gras Day in 1954, is a celebrated artist whose work reflects the rich cultural heritage of his native Acadiana. A lifelong Louisiana resident, Pavy began studying art at an early age, cultivating a unique formalism that combines vibrant colors, abstract imagery, and the rich tradition of Cajun storytelling. Dubbed the "Picasso of Zydeco" by Rolling Stone, his work spans a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking.

12/10/2024

UL Press is seeking an undergraduate UL student worker for the Spring 2025 semester. In this role, the student will assist the Sales and Marketing office with logistics and supply chain management. This is a great student job for someone interested in learning the basics of how a business works.

Areas of work include:

- Inventory management
- Purchase order fulfillment
- Returns processing
- Using eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and QuickBooks
- Event preparation
- Working two or three UL Press sales events per semester
- 100% on-site work

This offer may be extended through the 2025-2026 academic year depending on strong performance and the availability of funds. (UL Press does not offer this position during the summer.) Because UL press sustains its operations through book sales, the student selected for this role may take pride in directly supporting the production of new books through their work.

Visit our website here: www.ulpress.org

Interested? Email us with your resume!
[email protected]

UL Press

12/10/2024

Thanks to Garden and Gun for picking Henri Bendel and the Worlds He Fashioned for their end of the year book list!

From the review: "No less a fan of fashion than Julia Reed used to take the train from her Virginia boarding school to New York to visit what many remember as the chicest small department store in the world: Henri Bendel’s. In Tim Allis’s gorgeously illustrated and engaging history of the store and the man who founded it, we learn that Bendel wasn’t French as the name Henri implies, but Bayou-born and bred. Author Allis is well-suited to present his story, having grown up on part of the original Bendel family estate in Lafayette, Louisiana.
—Caroline Rennolds Milbank, fashion historian"

Gorgeous cookbooks, charming poetry collections, meditations on nature, and more delightful 2024 reading picks from G&G editors and contributors

12/10/2024

Thanks to Woman Magazine for this exquisite short review of our new release, Henri Bendel and the Worlds He Fashioned:

Explore a curated collection of exquisite books perfect for gifting.

12/10/2024

Link in comments. Poet Sue Owen reads from her latest poetry collection Hurricane in a Bad Mood at the Roy House. Owen, who lived and taught in Louisiana for more than thirty years, continues to offer poems rich with her provocative dark humor. Here she explores her familiar themes of fear, danger, and death, but with a new emphasis on the threat of global warming and a future of possible doom. Her vivid curiosity, displayed in the examination of language, proverbial sayings, and the personification of inanimate objects, extends to nature’s fury, as in the title poem “Hurricane in a Bad Mood.” In addition, she depicts the many victims of oil spills in “When Pelicans Cannot Fly” and “The Gulf Turns into Tears.” As in her earlier books, one of which won a national competition, the poems range in tone from the playful to the prophetic, often containing flashes of wit, as in “Last Nail in the Coffin” and “Even the Dead Do It.” Whether ethereal or earthy, these poems encourage the reader to remain aware of our inevitable fate, but also to confront without despair the environmental challenges of our difficult century.

12/07/2024

On Thursday, December 19th, UL Press and the Center for Louisiana Studies are hosting a Holiday Open House and Book Sale at the Roy House.

We hope to see you there for lots of good cheer and last-minute holiday gifts. We're having a 50% off sale on all UL Press titles, plus more discounts on selected titles. Enjoy hot cider, cookies, and old-fashioned Christmas crafts.

The Roy House is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for book sales. Santa will be here to hear your holiday wishes. We're hanging a few sprigs of mistletoe around the house! Bring someone special and surprise them with a sweet photo inside the oldest building on UL Lafayette's campus, the J. Arthur Roy House.

12/05/2024

Link in comments. Waking Up the Dream State describes Louisiana’s long march toward environmental protection through nine lawsuits that have brought the state into the new era. All these cases, which range from the Vieux Carré Expressway to the “world’s largest incinerator” to the collapse of the Louisiana Coastal Zone, rise from small communities who have been burdened by toxic waste, displacement by major highways, contaminated water, and the loss of fishery resources.

Photos and in-depth descriptions bring to life the stories of the people involved; ordinary people against the odds—and institutions as mighty as the Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Highways, and the powerful petrochemical industry.

Waking Up the Dream State details the outcomes of these cases: the triumphant victories as well as the devastating losses. Win or lose, Louisiana will be forever indebted to its citizens who had the courage to bring these cases against industrial giants and powerful agencies.

11/28/2024

Link in comments. 50% off selected titles through Tuesday, 12/03! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

11/15/2024

Congrats to our friends and colleagues at Octavia Books on the beautiful renovation and dramatic expansion of their location!

See inside the newly renovated 25-year-old Uptown bookstore.