Happy University Press Week! Help us celebrate university presses November 10-14. Since 2012, members of the Association of University Presses have participated in an annual celebration of University Presses.

This year’s theme for UP Week is “Team UP,” to celebrate the ways that university presses and their authors Team UP with a vast network of reviewers, booksellers, freelancers, translators, librarians, teachers, and students to advance knowledge and understanding.

The #UPweek blog tour today asks “WHO TeamsUP for your Press?” Posts on today’s topic highlighting staff or authors who embody the TeamUP ethos through volunteerism, advocacy, community engagement, and leadership come from Harvard Education Press, University of Illinois Press, Columbia University Press, University of Chicago Press, Syracuse University Press, Bristol University Press, Purdue University Press, Mercer University Press, Clemson University Press, Cornell University Press, Edinburgh University Press, and SUNY Press.

For our contribution, Associate Acquisitions Editor Taylor Gilreath highlights Jim Reese’s advocacy for incarcerated people’s rights and how it inspired her to publish Coming to a Neighborhood Near You: The Repercussions of Crime and Punishment (Potomac Books, 2025).

I graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a BA in 2019 and majored in English. I focused a lot on modern American and global literature, fiction, and creative writing after realizing there wasn’t a lot of room to be creative on a pre-law track. Still of interest though, I completed the requirements to minor in criminology and psychology. I worked as a copyeditor for The Daily Nebraskan, UNL’s student newspaper. I also interned at UNP during my senior year and was eventually offered a full-time position as an acquisitions editorial assistant. This is my sixth year with the Press, and I am in my second year as the acquiring editor of Potomac Books, a trade nonfiction imprint of UNP. If I’m not reading for work, I’m reading for fun (and almost always I’m doing both!).

My job in publishing fulfills so many facets of my life, and I’m grateful for the ability to work with books every day. If you believe in the power of reading, whether it be for fun, education, information, or for an alternate reality, what better career is there than to publish books? I knew from an early age that reading and writing was my strong suit, but as I stepped into my adult life, I had to acknowlege the harsh reality that traditional reading and writing are losing power in the world. I want to make certain that these creative outlets do not disappear through supporting authors and helping shepherd books to publication.

What immediately grabbed me about Coming to a Neighborhood Near You was that it investigates a crime that happened in Nebraska. It was regional. The deeper I got into the book, I realized how much the advocacy and mission of the author aligned with my own. I respect so much Jim’s commitment to advocating for incarcerated peoples’ right to be educated behind prison walls and the initiatives he’s been a part of to offer a creative outlet for them. I thought I wanted to go to law school, but it conflicted with the creative side of myself as an editor and publisher. We need both and this book is a good representation of that. It speaks to the humanity that is often missing when we discuss criminal justice, and readers will be reminded with this book not to lose sight of that.

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This essay was originally published on the blog in August.