The 2026 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show honors the university publishing community’s design and production professionals; recognizes achievement in design, production, and manufacture of print publications; and serves as a spark to conversations and source of ideas about intelligent, creative, and resourceful publishing. 

Congratulations to Kari Andresen, Tim Jones, Katrina Noble, and Ashely Muehlbauer whose work on UNP cover designs are among the 94 selected entries.

A full list of selections can be viewed here.

Designer: Kari Andresen
Acquiring Editor: Emily Casillas
Project Editor: Sara Springsteen

Pleasure, Play, and Politics is the first book to examine the roles humor played in U.S. feminism during the late twentieth century. Based on extensive archival research, it brings to light the stunning, moving, and frankly hilarious ways feminists have used satire, irony, and spectacle as they worked to build a better world. The story it tells includes activism and music, political mobilization and cartooning, stand-up comedy and demands for change.

Jacket Designer: Tim Jones
Designer/Compositor: Lindsey Welch
Acquiring Editor: Courtney Ochsner
Project Editor: Sara Springsteen

The essays in Selected Misdemeanors are unapologetic word grenades lobbed into an otherwise complacent forgetfulness. Throughout the collection, Sue William Silverman focuses on pivotal, often fleeting moments that defined the course of her life, such as a fraught family vacation; an evening watching the Chippendale dancers’ extravaganza; a Pac-Man-and-whisky-fueled rumination on failed relationships; and the way melodramatic movies such as Rome Adventure shape an adolescent’s idea of love. Ranging from short to flash to micro length, these emotionally courageous writings imbue minimalist forms with maximalist emotions and an unrepentant, no-holds-barred attitude.

Jacket Designer: Katrina Noble
Designer/Compositor: Lindsey Welch
Acquiring Editor: Courtney Ochsner
Project Editor: Abigail Kwambamba

Like many girls growing up in the eighties and nineties, Melissa Fraterrigo leaned on popular culture to transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond. Judy Blume told stories about girls embracing their imperfections; Madonna encouraged bold moves. But Fraterrigo’s experiences with dating and attempts to refashion her body through diet and exercise left her feeling far from empowered. It wasn’t until Fraterrigo became a mother to twin daughters and they began their own self-criticisms that she questioned how she might help them navigate their own girlhoods.

Jacket Designer: Ashley Muehlbauer
Designer/Compositor: Annie Shahan
Acquiring Editor: Courtney Ochsner
Project Editor: Abigail Kwambamba

In How to Change History Robin Hemley grapples with the individual’s navigation of history and the conflict between personal and public histories. In an attempt to restore, resurrect, and reclaim what might otherwise be lost, Hemley meditates and speculates on photography, scrapbooks, historical markers, travelogues, TV shows, real estate come-ons, washed up rock stars, incontinent dachshunds, stalkers, skeletons in the closet, and literature. He also examines his parents’ lives as writers, documenting their under-seen influence on the art movements of the day.

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Save 50% on these books and more during our Summer Reading Sale. Just enter 6SUMM26 in the discount code field of your shopping cart and click “Apply.” Offer expires July 31, 2026 and is good for U.S. and Canadian shipments only.