Hanif Abdurraqib's 'Go Ahead in the Rain' at Winter Institute

Every year, the American Booksellers Association gathers independent booksellers together for professional development and author appearances at their Winter Institute meeting. This year's Winter Institute was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and hosted authors Reshma Saujani, Margaret Atwood, and our own author—poet, essayist, and music expert Hanif Abdurraqib. Hanif's delivered his keynote to a packed auditorium, reading passages from his latest book Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest and emphasizing how bookstores had shaped his life as a reader and a writer. The audience connected deeply to Hanif's incredible, writerly voice and his deep love for bookstores. Read Robert Gray's summary of the keynote address for Shelf Awareness.

Before the keynote, we scoped out the auditorium. We'll be honest; everyone involved was a little nervous about how many people would show up to see Hanif. The room seemed huge, and the podium onstage quite formal—a far cry from the ice cream parlors and cozy, local bookstores Hanif's voice has graced at his readings in the past.

As booksellers started to stream into the auditorium, Hanif began to read Go Ahead in the Rain passages on stage, from behind the podium. At some point, attendance swelled and Hanif left the stage to read closer to the audience. He welcomed those who wished to come forward and sit at his feet, which were characteristically adorned in the freshest kicks.

The response on social media was overwhelming. In advance of Go Ahead in the Rain's publication date next Friday, February 1st, we gathered a selection of the social media love for Hanif and for his book to celebrate a truly masterful piece of music writing. A special thanks to the American Booksellers Association for inviting Hanif to give a keynote, which is a huge platform for a university press author. Most of all, though, our deepest gratitude to all the booksellers who engaged with Hanif and his book during Winter Institute this year. The University of Texas Press is honored to share Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest with communities of readers across the country and around the world.

From Unabridged Bookstore and 57th Street Books | Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, the American Booksellers Association,  Two Cats Communications, and Duende District Bookstore

Watch these Instagram stories on our Instagram page. Find the #Wi14 Highlights!

And finally, a sampling of the Twitter love:

Follow Hanif Abdurraqib on social media for dispatches from his upcoming appearances (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram). Follow the University of Texas Press on social media for more books and author news!

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Holly Gleason's Woman Walk the Line Receives Belmont Book Award

We are thrilled to announce that Holly Gleason's book Woman Walk the Line has won the prestigious Belmont Book Award and will be honored at the International Country Music Conference on June 1. Woman Walk the Line is the twelfth book in our American Music Series, edited by Jessica Hopper, David Menconi, and Oliver Wang. Jessica Hopper's own book Night Moves will publish this September. 

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NASHVILLE, TN—At a time when women’s voices are being raised, Woman Walk The Line: How The Women of Country Music Changed Our Lives continues resonating. With recent appearances on SiriusXM’s Debatable, Emmy-nominated “Pickler & Ben,” Rolling Stone and Mojo, the collection of personal essays by 27 women of varying ages, races, occupations and orientations has won the prestigious Belmont Book Award. Presented on June 1 during the International Country Music Conference held annually at Belmont University, the conference is the foremost academic gathering devoted to country, roots and bluegrass music in the nation.

“I was startled and thrilled for all of the writers and the artists they celebrated,” editor and contributor Holly Gleason said of the news. “I know how academically accomplished those judges are, and it speaks volumes about the work each of these women did. How music impacts a life, changes a person or even empowers an individual is something we don’t pay enough attention to. At a time when #MeToo and TimesUp matters, this book – and the response to it -- is proof that positive women do listen to women’s art, and find within that art a sense of strength, comfort, inspiration and validation. What’s amazing is how many men did, too.”

Named one of No Depression’s Top 10 Books of 2017 and a selection of Minneapolis’ Public Radio’s Rock & Roll Book club, Rolling Stone proclaimed, “There’s probably no better time for Woman Walk The Line … the groundbreakers continue to strike many chords,” Santa Fe New Mexican declared, “a sisterhood — even a whisper network — in the genre that predates #MeToo by decades,” and Britain’s MOJO offered, “The stylistic line from Maybelle Carter through Dolly Parton on up to Taylor Swift isn’t a straight on, and the intention of this absorbing anthology isn’t to pretend that it is…intimate, inspirational essays.” 

Who is reading Woman Walk the Line? (Click to enlarge.)

Who is reading Woman Walk the Line? Allison Moorer and Hayes Carll, Rhiannon Giddens, Keith Urban, Lucinda Williams, Brenda Lee, Lyle Lovett, Reba McEntire, Brandy Clark, Steve Earle, Tammy Faye Starlite, Kenny Chesney, Jim Lauderdale and Wynonna Judd, Dave Schools, Terri Clark, Darius Rucker, Todd Snider, Kacey Musgraves, Tanya Tucker, Lee Ann Womack, Chris Carrabba, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Elizabeth Cook, Billy Bob Thornton, Patty Loveless, Dolly Parton, and Ronnie Milsap

Fixin’ To Write also put the anthology PASTE called “truly stunning” on their 2017 Books We Loved list with Roxanne Gay’s Hunger, Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Misfit’s Manifesto, Marie Howe’s Magdalene, Sasha Steensen’s House of Deer, Ariel Levy’s The Rules Do Not Apply, Jennifer Weiner’s Hungry Heart and Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States.

“I think women’s art is never as respected as it should be,” Gleason continued. “That’s why this anthology was important to me. Ronni Lundy, who won the top James Beard Award, on the power of Hazel Dickens as a voice of protest and a woman in the 70s? A transgendered writer on Rosanne Cash seeing past the transition to embrace who was going to be as the embodiment of what her music held? Even 17-year old Taylor Swift on Brenda Lee illuminating superstardom as a true artist when she was a young girl? It adds up, and it says, ‘Hell, yeah, we’re here, and we don’t just matter, we manifest!’ This honor recognizes those things in such a profound way.”

As The New York Times wrote, “Each of the 27 essays focuses on the experience of when music was a savior, an inspiration or an acknowledgment of a deep and personal truth.” People seconded that notion with “A rhapsodic, moving look at music’s transformative power” and Oxford American offered, “an exploration of that liminal space between the artist’s intention and the listener’s reception.”

Part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Author Series, Gleason will be part of a panel in late July in Cleveland. In addition, dates are also being sorted out for a panel at the Country Music Hall of Fame this summer. After appearing at the Southern Festival of Books, the Miami Book Fair, a rogue South by Southwest panel, Woman Walk The Line has also gone to Texas State and the University of Florida.

Even noted memoirist Pamela Des Barres, known for I’m With The Band and Lets Spend The Night Together, enthused, “Awesomely important book.”

“It’s the writers and the way music shaped them,” Gleason explained. “It’s undeniable, and it reminds us how pivotal music is in our lives. In the rush of tech and the convenience of streaming, it’s easy to forget.

Full List of Essays and Authors below:

• Maybelle Carter: The Root of It All by Caryn Rose 
• Lil Harden: That’s How I Got to Memphis by Alice Randall 
• Wanda Jackson: When She Starts Eruptin’ by Holly George-Warren 
• Hazel Dickens: The Plangent Bone by Ronni Lundy 
• June Carter Cash: Eulogy of a Mother Rosanne Cash 
• Brenda Lee: Rare Peer by Taylor Swift 
• Bobbi Gentry: Let the Mystery Be by Meredith Ochs 
• Loretta Lynn: The Pill by Madison Vain 
• Dolly Parton: Long Island Down Home Blues by Nancy Harrison 
• Emmylou Harris: Common Ground in an Uncommon Love by Ali Berlow 
• Barbara Mandrell: Lubbock in the Rearview Mirror by Shelby Morrison 
• Tanya Tucker: Punk Country and Sex Wide Open by Holly Gleason 
• Rita Coolidge: A Dark-Eyed Cherokee Country Gal by Kandia Crazy Horse 
• Linda Ronstadt: Canciones de Corazon Salvaje by Grace Potter 
• Rosanne Cash: Expectations and Letting Go by Deborah Sprague 
• The Judds: Comfort Far from Home by Courtney E. Smith 
• k.d. lang: Flawless, Fearless by Kelly McCartney 
• Lucinda Williams: Flesh & Ghosts, Dreams + Marrow by Lady Goodman 
• Mary Chapin Carpenter: Every Hometown Girl by Cynthia Sanz 
• Patty Loveless: Beyond What You Know by Wendy Pearl 
• Shania Twain: But the Little Girls Understand by Emily Yahr 
• Alison Krauss: Draw Your Own Map by Aubrie Sellers 
• Taylor Swift: Dancing on Her Own by Elysa Gardner 
• Kacey Musgraves: Follow Your Arrow by Dacey Orr 
• Rhiannon Giddens: A Gift Past the Songs by Caroline Randall Williams 
• Patty Griffin: Remembering to Breathe by Kim Ruehl 

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Jessica Hopper and Oliver Wang Join American Music Series Editorial Team

Authors and music critics Jessica Hopper and Oliver Wang have joined David Menconi of the Raleigh News & Observer on the editorial team of the American Music series published by the University of Texas Press.

“We are at a particularly ripe time within music culture to interrogate what is American music; we're overdue for an expansion of the canon,” says Hopper.

“There’s such great potential to publish more books about pop music that are smart and

cogent but written for a broad audience,” Wang added. “It’s a thrill to play a role in helping shepherd some of those projects.”

The American Music series, which began in 2012, publishes cultural histories, essay

collections, critical artist biographies, memoirs, and other forms of inventive storytelling that expand readers’ perceptions of music.

“There are so many incredible music journalists, critics, poets, academics, amateurs, and musicians writing right now whose perspectives and curiosities can serve to enlighten our own,” says Hopper. “My hope is that in this new phase of the series we can publish work informed by both fandom and scholarship, delve into regional scenes, and raise up marginalized sounds and ideas, contemporary and historic.”

Highlights from the series include Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chestnutt, one of NPR’s Best Books of 2015 and a finalist for the American Booksellers Association 2016 Book of the Year, and John Prine: In Spite of Himself, praised by Publishers Weekly as “an admiring portrait of an often restless though always canny songwriter.”

The newest release, Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives, edited by Holly Gleason, is a collection of essays from some of America’s most intriguing women writers on the female country artists who have inspired them, including Brenda Lee, June Carter Cash, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, and Taylor Swift.

As the series has expanded beyond Americana and roots music, the editors have made it a priority to seek out manuscripts from diverse voices across genres.

“I’d like to see more books focused on particular music scenes, both historic and contemporary,” says Wang. “I like thinking about how music roots itself in neighborhoods and communities and the rich relationships that flow out of that.”

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Adds Hopper, “We need more books by black and brown women. We need more books on music by trans and queer pioneers. We need more books about hip hop. We need more books about Latinx artists shaping American music. We need women telling their own stories. We need books to explain how the AIDS crisis impacted American music making. And we need books that get at the histories that are unGoogleable, before they ebb away entirely.”

Upcoming books in the series include A Spy in the House of Loud, a memoir from Chris Stamey, founding member of the dB’s, that will be available next April; and, tentatively slated for 2019, a history of women in punk by journalist, musician, and “Punk Professor” Vivien Goldman, and a critical biography of A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, author of They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.

More information about the series, forthcoming books, and submissions can be found at: https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/series/american-music-series.

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Jessica Hopper is a Chicago-based writer and producer. She was previously the executive editor of MTV News, Senior Editor at Pitchfork, and Music Editor at Rookie. Her essays have appeared in Best Music Writing for 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2011. Hopper was the longtime music consultant for This American Life. She is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking (2009), The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (2015) and the forthcoming Night Moves (2018).

David Menconi is a music critic and arts reporter at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has also written three books, two of them (2012's Ryan Adams: Losering, A Story of Whiskeytown and Ray Benson's 2015 memoir Comin' Right at Ya) published by University of Texas Press.

Oliver Wang is a professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach, and author of Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes regularly on music and arts, including for KCET’s Artbound, NPR, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the creator of an audioblog, Soul Sides, and host of a weekly podcast, Heat Rocks.

The American Music series is written for pop music enthusiasts of all stripes, and books in this series treat important, enduring, and perhaps under-recognized aspects of our most dynamic art form. Any definition of American music must encompass the full diversity of people, genres, and forces that have shaped it, and to that end the series publishes cultural histories, essay collections, critical artist biographies, and memoirs, as well as other forms of inventive storytelling.

Additional Information:

Cameron M. Ludwick | Senior Publicist | cludwick@utpress.utexas.edu | T: 512.232.7633

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