About Truman State University Press

History

Truman State University Press was established in 1986 (with the name Thomas Jefferson University Press) to publish peer-reviewed research and literature for the scholarly community and the reading public, originally focusing on sixteenth-century European history. In the first decades, the Press also published titles on various  topics written by authors who were connected to the University. By the mid 1990s, the Press had become well known for its high-quality titles, topics, and authors in the Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies series (later called the Early Modern Studies series),  a premier venue for  for interdisciplinary studies in the Renaissance and Reformation era.  In 2008 the series name was changed to Early Modern Studies to reflect changes in the field. In total, the Press published 104 titles in these two series, including 10 titles in the Peter Martyr Library.  At the same time, the Press was narrowing its publishing program to focus on topics related to Missouri and the midwestern region, and to poetry, which was published under the New Odyssey imprint.  In 1997, the Press launched the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, an annual award for the best collection of poetry in English named in honor of native Missourian T. S. Eliot. In addition, TSUP published the annual reports of the Bethsaida Excavation Project  for several years.

TSUP published important works on the American Midwest and selected topics in American history/American studies, including the Truman Legacy Series, which was published in cooperation with the Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, and the Truman Little White House in Key West, Florida. TSUP’s literature publications included poetry in the New Odyssey Series, a Contemporary Nonfiction Series, and a literary journal, Chariton Review, whose production and management TSUP took over in 2008.  The Notable Missourians series for young readers and a series on Education and the Liberal Arts were launched in 2014. The Young Voices of Missouri project, begun in 2016 as a special issue of Chariton Review, published the work of high school students in Missouri.

TSUP Today

In 2017, in light of significant challenges for public higher education institutions in Missouri, including continuing cuts to core appropriations, Truman State University Press began the process of phasing out operations.  Recognizing the significant disruption that other, more abrupt, university press shutdowns have caused to authors and readers alike, TSUP staff worked closely with University administration to create a plan for a gradual shutdown process that would respect the rights and needs of our authors and customers, and would allow us time to assist authors in making other arrangements for their books.

Our first actions were to help authors find other publishers to take over projects that were under contract but not yet in process, move the Early Modern Studies series to Penn State University Press (effective Jan. 2018) and the Peter Martyr Library to The Davenant Institution, and discontinue new publications in the areas of American Midwest and contemporary nonfiction.  Our last new titles in American Midwest and contemporary nonfiction came out in 2017, as well as the last books in our Notable Missourians series for young readers.  In 2018, we published the last winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, and the grand finale issue of Chariton Review (a combined 2019 issue) was released in 2020.

Throughout the shutdown process, TSUP retained a part-time skeleton staff and  continued to distribute active titles while working on reverting rights to authors, starting with older or less-active titles and working forward.  As we notified authors that their title was going out of print and rights were reverting to them, we also worked with them to dispose of remaining stock and offered our assistance to make other, appropriate arrangements for their work.  Our last titles went out of print at the end of 2020 and authors  received their final royalty reports and payments in spring 2021.

Our website is being maintained for historical and reference purposes, and provides links for books that have been taken over by another publisher or are being distributed by the author.  Books in our Notable Missourians series are available in pdf form on GoogleBooks, as are issues of Chariton Review, beginning with vol. 31 (2008), when TSUP took over production and management of the journal. Study guides for the Notable Missourians books are available on this website, on the page for that series.

Closing a university press is never a welcome occurrence, and all too often, the shutdown comes as a surprise to staff and authors alike.  While we recognize that some people found our approach to a shutdown confusing, with a timeline that may have looked indecisive,  we hope that our authors, customers, and others will understand that our plan was based on a desire to keep our authors’ titles available as long as possible (especially those published in the last years of full operations) and to allow us time to assist authors during the shutdown process. The phased shutdown also permitted us to close down the business in an orderly fashion, settling all outstanding accounts, auditing royalty reports before issuing a final check, and organizing and archiving files, in addition to other myriad tasks.

Truman State University was the smallest university in the United States to have a university press and our press was small, but for many of us who worked at TSUP over the years, the Press was not just a job, it  was our passion.  We were dedicated to producing carefully selected, well edited, and beautifully designed books. We loved working with our authors and felt that they were part of our publishing family.  Our interns and student workers became our friends, and we often kept in touch long after they graduated.  Even after the Press has closed and the staff have moved on, we remain proud of what we accomplished in publishing 280 titles and 26 journal issues in just over 30 years, doing almost all of our production and editorial work in house.  And we are especially proud to have had the honor of working with so many wonderful authors–we thank them and wish them all the best.