The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota is looking ahead to its most exciting year ever. Various projects are rushing to maturity in the next few months, and my schedule for 2019 is already shaping up. So this seems as good a time as any to do a quick update.

First, come and hang out with some Digital Press authors and editors on Saturday night at Ojata Records here in Grand Forks, North Dakota from 7 pm on. For conversation, books, music, and, of course awesome free gifts thanks to The Digital Press, North Dakota Quarterly, June Panic, Andrew Reinhard, Chris Matthews, and Bret Weber (and the North Dakota Man Camp Project). Special thanks to Brian Schill of NDQ who is pulling this all together.

Next, by this time next week, I hope that the first Digital Press Edition of Chris Price’s The Old Church on Walnut Street is available for download and purchase. Here’s the cover:

Epoiesen layout is now almost complete, and I expect it to be available by the end of the month. After going around and around on cover designs, I think Shawn Graham and Andrew Reinhard have convinced me to go with some variation on this design. More on that thought process here.

The final issues of North Dakota Quarterly for 2017 (volume 84.3/4) is almost ready to be mailed out to subscribers. I can take almost no credit for this volume, other than helping stuff envelopes, but as NDQ is moving into The Digital Press portfolio this winter, I’m spreading the news and excitement. Shawn Boyd’s most excellent cover design celebrates the immeasurable contributions from our retiring managing editor, Kate Sweney.

The NDQ and Digital Press folks are well on our way to publishing Snichimal Vayuchil, an anthology of translated Tsotsil Mayan poetry as a print-on-demand volume. You can download it here for free.

We’re also excited to announce Eric Burin’s project on Colin Kaepernick. Eric spilled the beans on Martin Luther King day:

MLK Day seems like an appropriate time to tell folks about my latest project: assembling and editing an anthology on the Kaepernick-inspired protests. Protesting on Bended Knee will include brief essays from scholars in different disciplines (e.g., history, political science, philosophy, communications, psychology, gender studies, law, etc.) as well as pieces written by veterans, athletes, coaches, sportswriters, national anthem singers, and others. The volume, which soon will be published by the Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, aims to elevate and expand our conversations about patriotism, free speech, and race in 21st America.

Anyone familiar with Burin’s edited volume, Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College (2016), should know that Protesting on Bended Knee will be insightful, thought-provoking, and compelling.

Finally, I’m starting to pull together various Elwyn Robinson related content including a recent forum in North Dakota Quarterly and some parts of his memoirs to create a Digital Press/NDQ version of Robinson’s History of North Dakota, which was recently released under a somewhat-open license from the University of North Dakota.There will be a to-do announcing the open publication of this book and UND’s Scholarly Commons repository sometime in late February. My hope is that we can announce our special edition of the book as just the kind of remixing that open publication can provide!

As always, stay tuned!