New WSU Press Director Sees “Position to Succeed

JEWSIN THED

The staff of WSU Press. FRONT ROW: DeLisa Gaye Fields, Administrative Assistant II; Emily Nowak, Marketing and Sales Manager; Kristina Stonehill, Promotions Manager SECOND ROW: Stephanie Williams, Director; Aaron Hearn, Assistant Storekeeper; Tyeresa Stevenson, Business Manager LAST ROW: Kristin Harpster,

Editorial, Design, and Production Manager; Marie Sweetman, Acquisitions Editor; Jamie Jones, Advertising and Exhibits Manager; Todd Richards, Warehouse

Manager; Annie Martin, Editor-in-Chief; Julie Warheit, Journals Manager; Theresa Martinelli, Order Fulfillment Manager MISSING FROM PHOTO: Carrie Downes

Teefey, Senior Production Editor and Reprints Manager.

New WSU Press Director Sees ‘Position to Succeed’ Stephanie Williams discusses sta upheavals and Jewish publishing.

The annual Association for Jewish Studies Conference for academic publishers took place Dec. 13-17. For Wayne State University Press, one of the biggest national publishers of Jewish Studies academic books, quite a lot has changed since last year’s display. Most significantly, the Press has Stephanie welcomed a new Williams director, Stephanie Williams, who started her job in August and moved to Detroit at the end of October. Williams comes to the role from her previous position as director of Ohio University Press in Athens, Ohio, and has more than two decades of experience in mul-

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR

tiple directing and marketing/ promotions roles across both academic and mass-market publishing.

Williams is planning to stick with WSU Press for quite a while — she even bought her first house, in Ferndale. “I love it here,” she said. “This is a staff that is very unique in its gender, in its diversity, in its longevity.”

But her tenure follows a brief span of public turmoil at the Press. In February, several senior staff including Editorin-Chief Annie Martin were abruptly fired, then rehired less than two weeks later following a groundswell of outrage from the academic publishing community and the Press’ own editorial board.

During this time, the Press’ previous interim director Kathryn Wildfong came out of retirement to become interim director once more and rehired the fired staff. Wildfong remained in the role until Williams was hired in August.

Little public explanation was given for the actions, and the university declined to comment to the JN about them. But the chain of command at the Press did change during this time. Before the firings, the Press reported to the dean of the University Library System and School of Information Sciences. Since then, the Press has reported to Michael Wright, chief of staff for WSU President M. Roy Wilson.

These incidents were previously covered in the Jewish News in February; our past coverage is accessible on our website, thejewishnews.com.

Speaking to the Jewish News shortly before the Jewish Studies conference began, Williams reiterated the Press’ commitment to Jewish Studies publishing and addressed the behind-the-scenes struggles.

She said she was initially in the running for the director job in 2019, but that “I had seen and heard some things that had kind of indicated there was a problem” in the workplace. She withdrew her name from the running, but re-applied to the job in summer 2020, once the dust had cleared around the staffing upheavals.

Williams said the earlier debacle was due to “people who

either did not have a vigorous understanding of publishing, of university press publishing or of management making major decisions for the Press.” She declined to elaborate further.

Now, though, Williams is “very pleased” with the administration’s current level of support for the Press.

“I would not have taken the job, and I certainly would not have moved to Detroit, I definitely would not have bought a house … if I did not believe that the Press was in a position to succeed,” she said.

JEWISH STUDIES CONTINUE

The Press published around a dozen titles last year in the field of Jewish Studies, Williams said. Its relationship to the field is historic: Leonard M. Simons, an early donor to the Press in the 1950s, helped support its early publishing efforts in Jewish topics.

At this year’s Association for Jewish Studies Conference, the Press is showing off recent publications including Nancy Sinkoff’s award-winning From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The New York Intellectuals, and Politics of Jewish History; and a reprinting of Emma Wolf’s novel Heirs of Yesterday.

Its upcoming titles for 2021 include a book by Erin McGlothlin about depictions of Holocaust perpetrators in fiction and nonfiction, and a comprehensive Jewish Cultural Studies research book from Simon J. Bronner.

Going forward, Williams said, the Press hopes to find further ways to intersect its Jewish Studies arm with a larger publishing focus on social justice issues. “We’re looking for areas where we can be more inclusive,” she said.

Williams further credits Elaine Driker, chair of the WSU Press board, for being “absolutely invaluable in helping me understand people, places and things I need to know about” within the Detroit Jewish community.

The pandemic has forced the Press to push many of its high-profile book launch events into the digital realm. Shortly after Williams joined, the Press was launching just such a big-ticket Jewish Studies book: Invisible Ink, the highly anticipated memoir by Guy Stern, a former Ritchie Boy, WSU distinguished professor emeritus and director of the Institute for the Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial Center.

“We have a tremendous number of people who love him,” Williams said about the experience of promoting the book online. Students and faculty alike, she said, were desperate to shake the nearly 99-year-old author’s hand. The Press is hopeful they can have a makeup event featuring Stern once COVID restrictions lift.

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