Professor's online press offers a home for unpublished literary works
MERCED -- The University of California, Merced, has expanded its offerings of online publications with the recent debut of AlternaCtive PublicaCtions. Dedicated to providing an online home for previously unpublished creative works written primarily by Latino and Latina authors, AlternaCtive PublicaCtions is the brainchild of UC Merced's Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez. A professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts, Martín-Rodríguez specializes in Hispanic culture and literature.
"My goal as publisher is to provide an outlet for innovative literature that may not be considered marketable by established presses," Martín-Rodríguez said.
Martín-Rodríguez's other goal is to encourage public participation, by allowing and archiving reader responses for possible use by researchers.
AlternaCtive PublicaCtions will feature an author and his or her works for about three months, giving ample opportunity for readers to digest what is published and publicly offer feedback on it.
Currently featured is Rubén Medina, a poet, fiction writer and essayist who has served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1991. Medina has published two poetry collections -- "Báilame este viento, Mariana," (1980) which earned the first prize in the 1980 Chicano literary contest at UC Irvine, and "Amor de Lejos … Fools' Love" (Arte Publico Press, 1986), a finalist in the 1984 Casa de las Américas Literary Prize held in Cuba - and has been included in a variety of anthologies and literary critiques.
Medina's bilingual "Nomadic Nation" is the site's first exhibited work and will remain online until February.
AlternaCtive PublicaCtions will not assume copyright over published works. The press also hopes to become a venue for facilitating future book deals, and Martín-Rodríguez is confident that some of the works featured will be of interest to regular publishers elsewhere.
"AlternaCtive PublicaCtions is to literature as galleries are to art," he said. "It's a public space for the temporary display of creative works to facilitate interaction with all who view them."
Visit the new Web site at http://alternative-publications.ucmerced.edu/
For more information about the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, visit http://ssha.ucmerced.edu/.
