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The Teaching Press
UW-Green Bay's student-managed publisher and press
The newest descendants of the Mimi and Rupert dynasty would like to return to the nest, please. (Photo: UWGB News and Marketing)
The signs of spring have arrived at UWGB. On our Green Bay campus, Peregrine falcons nest atop the David A Cofrin Library. One pair of falcons began nesting there in 2017 to lay eggs and teach their fledglings to fly. This first falcon couple was named “Mimi” and “Rupert,” and their descendants have now brought three new fledglings into the world.
Through the falcon cam , UW-Green Bay students, staff, and nature lovers all over the planet can enjoy and encourage the growth of this delicate species. (You can even help name the new chicks each year.)
Mimi & Rupert Books, an imprint of the Teaching Press at UW-Green Bay. Logo designed by Samantha Vondrum.
Mimi and Rupert’s annual return inspired the name of our first imprint at The Teaching Press, Mimi & Rupert Books. What is an imprint? you may ask. An imprint is a division of publishing dedicated to specific projects. Mimi & Rupert Books interlace art and words, voice and image, into finely crafted, collaborative and inspiring stories. According to Samantha Vondrum, who worked as a press designer during the development of the imprints, Mimi & Rupert Books is “the imprint for our creative and found projects.”
The first title published under the Mimi & Rupert Books imprint was 2022’s Call Me Morgue, by Morgan Moran, with illustrations by Ali Juul. Learn more about this book here.
Mimi & Rupert Books’ most recent publication is Wandering Toft Point: An Interactive Journal . The journal is an interactive book that includes scientific illustrations alongside poetry and writings. The unique journal is “a book you can write as you hike”, says Dr. Rebecca Meacham, Director of the Teaching Press.
Mimi & Rupert Books is just one of the ways The Teaching Press caries the traditions of UW-Green Bay’s origins as “Eco-U.” In 2020, interns prototyped The Diary of Homes McGee: A Great Lakes Summer Vacation, written by Jessica Cook and Eric VanRemortel. This is a fun book created to explore the many resources of the great lakes that can be enjoyed by children. We currently are excited to be producing the book Lower Fox River PCB Cleanup Timeline: Introducing An Electronic Reference Library, by Greg Neuschafer, which we hope will not only educate readers about our natural resources but also bring awareness to the pollution that once existed along the river.
As we watch our resilient falcons bring in new voices into the world, the Teaching Press welcomes our new undertakings. We hope you will enjoy watching our new titles take wing.
—Reporting and writing by press publicity interns Jackie Wilson, Grace Desotell, and Abby Jurk
Over the summer and fall of 2021, fourteen interns with The Teaching Press had the opportunity to participate in book design, copyediting, developmental editing, client engagement, project management, printing, market research, and several other aspects of the production process for The Teaching Press’s newest book, Call Me Morgue, written by debut author Morgan Moran and illustrated by former press intern, Ali Juul.
As a part of the production process, The Teaching Press’s summer Marketing Lead intern, Rose Siegfried had the chance to talk to Call Me Morgue’s author, Morgan Moran about her writing process, her experiences in funeral work, and her hopes for all the readers of Call Me Morgue.
Rose: Call Me Morgue was initially a series of blog posts, how has its transition into book form impacted the essays? How will readers be more impacted by a print form versus seeing it online?
Morgan: I hope the messages hit deeper as a book. When I read something on a screen, I am constantly distracted by text messages, emails, the desire to google childhood stars (WHERE IS JONATHON TAYLOR THOMAS NOW?!)…when I hold a book in my hands, it’s just me and the book. My mind is in a much more wanting and receptive space.
Rose: Do you remember a specific moment in funeral work that urged you to write Call Me Morgue more than others?
Morgan: Only about 50 every day. My favorite lightning-in-a-bottle moments are the things people wouldn’t expect. Like how much I laugh with my co-workers. How fucking endearing it is watching my boss YouTube “how to do a cat eye” so he can give a dead woman a kickass wing. Or how touching it is when family members are involved in caring for their dead loved ones. People assume funeral work is sad and depressing, but there are so many wonderful moments.
Rose: How would you say the process of writing Call Me Morgue has changed you?
Morgan: Call Me Morgue is like having a giant PAY ATTENTION marquee blinking in my brain. The process has made me intensely observational. I work hard to make sense of my feelings (Why is this skeleton making me smile? Why am I crying over this dead lady’s foot?) then unpack everything later on to try to arrive at a teachable moment. (Aka death snack!) Without this outlet, my takeaways would never be anything but mind goo. It’s nice to be *forced to* articulate something meaningful.
Rose: What is the biggest takeaway you want readers to have from this book?
Morgan:
1. Normalize death, dying, and loss.
2. Make people less afraid to live their lives. My hope is that people will devote energy to life-giving things instead of life-draining things.
Rose: If you had to sum up Call Me Morgue or even just your experience as a funeral worker in a single word, what would it be and why?
Morgan: Transcendent. It has been such a gift to be able to leave my own reality so completely.
For more information including pre-order updates and the launch party RSVP link, check out the Call Me Morgue page here!
After Morgan Moran quit her advertising job, death work seemed easy—but the only easy part about it was the preparation: gory Instagram accounts, murder movies, playing “carry the corpse” with friends.
With each new encounter—hearse rides, cremations, embalming—she’s surprised as her work with the dead becomes life-giving, and her glimpses of grief become revelations. What else is happening in the world that’s this special, she wonders, that we know nothing about?
Morgan Moran wants us to know everything, from the tush-cupping reflex of a corpse’s arm during embalming, to the heartbreak of seeing a woman’s perfectly manicured foot. Through it all, Morgan is our darkly hilarious, deeply compassionate guide, irreverent about her novice mistakes while reverent, even wondrous, about the weight she learns to carry.
Author Morgan Moran
With a blend of lively illustrations and vibrant essays, Call Me Morgue, written by Morgan Moran and illustrated by Ali Juul, leaves an indelible mark on the way we think about what comes after death—for the deceased, for their mourners, and for those who care for us in our truly final hours.
For more information including pre-order updates and the launch party RSVP link, check out the Call Me Morgue page here!
Dead bodies, decapitated heads, and the person that keeps them company.
In a sometimes wrenching, often irreverent collection of “death snacks,” debut author Morgan Moran captures her fascination with death and its inner workings in her book, Call Me Morgue.
The book is based on the author’s blog, which chronicles her journey into death work as a mortician’s apprentice after a 12-year career in advertising.
Call Me Morgue is the fifth title from The Teaching Press at UW-Green Bay.
Press Director Dr. Rebecca Meacham happened upon Moran’s blog in early 2021, and realized it was the perfect teaching tool for the Press and its interns to tackle. Over summer and fall 2021, fourteen interns participated in various aspects of the production process, and The Teaching Press’s very own former intern Ali Juul, a 2021 Writing and Applied Arts BFA graduate, returned as the Call Me Morgue illustrator, helping this blog-turned book to spring to life through comic-book style illustrations.
“Moran’s hilarious voice, and its mix of the profane and the sacred was astonishing,” Meacham says. “I knew her wit, self-deprecation, and insights had to be a book.”
Meacham has long had confidence in Moran who graduated from UWGB in 2006 with BA in English. “Moran was freelancing for magazines in her sophomore year,” she says. “It’s a delight to bring her gorgeous words to our current writing majors and, as a book, to new audiences everywhere.”
For more information including pre-order updates and the launch party RSVP link, check out the Call Me Morgue page here!
Check out the UW-Green Bay News and Features Call Me Morgue article written by freelance writer Kristin Bouchard by following the link here to learn more about The Teaching Press’s newest book!
The Teaching Press is honored to congratulate Kimberly Davis, our former blog editor, on being awarded Fall/Winter 2021 UWGB Class speaker! Learn all about this poet and rising star here!
Our second book project has gone to press after many, many challenges, but we’re delighted with the results. Read UWGB’s article about our work on our client Peter Kraker’s history of the UW-Green Bay Women’s Basketball team, The Green Bay Way, here
As a student-managed printing house at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, The Teaching Press provides hands-on learning opportunities for undergraduates to learn transferable skills in a variety of interdisciplinary fields, one of which includes book design. During the summer of 2021, Teaching Press Interns JouLee Yang and Ali Juul took on the role of Design Team Leads for an exciting new Teaching Press Project. Under the direction of Dr. Rebecca Meacham, JouLee and Ali learned the ins and outs of book design and completed some stunning design work for the press. In a brief interview, Ali and JouLee shared some of their personal insight about book design and working with the Teaching Press.
How has working with Morgan and the press interns influenced the changes you have made to the book designs throughout this process?
JouLee: Working with Morgan and the press interns really helped me become more organized and force myself into a simpler mindset. I think with projects like this, I like to go above and beyond which is fine, but the real emphasis and thing that does the heavy work is Morgan’s words. I’ve had to force myself to take a step back, re-evaluate my work, and then focus on the manuscript to feel satisfied with the design, which even when simplified, still focused on what mattered most.
Ali: Collaborating with Morgan and the press interns definitely helped me out when I was struggling the most in the beginning. I knew that my illustrations weren’t always reflective of the story or didn’t mesh well together, but I wasn’t sure in which direction to take it in order to start solving the issues. With their input, the illustrations have become a lot more cohesive with each other and less overpowering of the text.
What was your favorite part of working on the design for the book (illustrating, layout, etc.)?
JouLee: I think my favorite part about working on the layouts was trying to figure out what sort of layouts to use. There were so many different things that could have been used to create the book that I was left floundering on what to do with it. After receiving critique, it helped me realize the difference between the layout of more creative works like posters and such and then the layout for a book.
Ali: I mainly worked on the illustrations, so I would have to say that. They were a lot of fun to work on, considering most of the drawings were of things I’ve never drawn before. It pushed me to go outside of my comfort zone.
What was the most challenging part of completing the designs for Call Me Morgue?
JouLee: I think the most challenging part had to be figuring out how to even start. I was unfamiliar with InDesign and spent hours just playing around trying to figure things out. I spent hours figuring out what kind of layouts were possible on InDesign that I had sketched out and which ones had to be scrapped. I think once I had that settled, the rest of the project went pretty smoothly despite a few bumps on the road.
Ali: For me, the hardest part was definitely drawing all the bones, skeletons, brains, etc. Especially the foot, though–that one took me hours. These are things that I normally avoid drawing at all costs, so it was challenging to say the least.
What about the original manuscript inspired your initial designs for the book?
JouLee: Personally, the moment Morgan brought up the graphic novel idea, I was stoked. Although I’ve played around with the idea before with short stories and such, I’ve never tried adding it to a larger project, and the original manuscript with its humor and informal voice really suited a graphic novel layout. A lot of things that inspired my layout ideas came from trying to keep this more informal and humorous voice, by placing more attention on the words themselves or supplementing their power.
Ali: The blog format of the manuscript and the overall chatty, social media nature of the text definitely swayed the way I illustrated to be a bit more modern but quirky in appearance. I would also say that the simple, fun line art drawings seen on the Call Me Morgue blog really inspired a lot of my drawings, as well. I wanted to keep the overall look of this book reflective of that, while still adding my own twists.
What has been your biggest take away from working on the Call Me Morgue book design team?
JouLee: I think my biggest takeaway from being part of this project was feeling okay in taking a step back from the work. It’s okay to not be able to think up designs, of delegating work to other members and letting them take control of the project. It’s okay to go above and beyond with the most beautiful artwork, the most complex layouts, the most stunning presentations. Simple is beautiful and does its best in highlighting work when it’s all that’s needed. This project really helped me put aside my perfectionist mindset and focus more on what the project needs and wants rather than attempting to fine tune everything and wanting things to be extravagant.
Ali: My biggest take away from this project is that, sometimes you may work on things for hours and hours and be pretty proud of it, only for it to be rejected in the end. And that’s okay! It doesn’t mean that it’s bad. You just have to keep refining and refining that thing until it’s the best possible version of itself.
Walking away from this project, what is one aspect or element of the book design that you feel most proud of?
JouLee: I think I’m most proud of how well the planning for illustrations and the actual workings of them fit into the layouts. It was challenging to figure out what kind of illustrations would best fit the chapters and where exactly there was too much space for illustrations or too little. Being able to see the book come together with all of its illustrations working cohesively made me very proud.
Ali: I think the overall style of the illustrations mixed with the limited color palette is what I am most proud of. I don’t normally try to limit the colors I’m working with, and I was pleasantly surprised with how some of the illustrations turned out.
Call Me Morgue, by Morgan Moran, releases Fall/Winter 2021.
By: Kimberly Davis, Blog/Web Editor & Copywriter for The Teaching Press during Spring 2021
In the big wide world of publishing presses, it can be overwhelming for the most savvy of clients (and the most eager of interns) to not only narrow down their options from a professional perspective, but to pinpoint what exactly each and every press does from an organizational one. Although publishing presses can certainly offer their clients and staff with an extremely individualized experience—due to their wide range of services/capabilities, community/literary focus, and even the unique personalities they have on staff—there are undoubtedly similarities that can be detected across the board. So, let’s go on and ahead and get down to business. (The publishing business, that is!)
THE TRADE BOOK PUBLISHERS (THE BIGWIGS!):
Trade book publishers are most likely the type of publishing press that most of us are familiar with. These presses follow the publishing process from start to finish—from the selection process all the way to retail/bookstore/library distribution. In a way, these large scale publishing presses are most known to focus on the consumer appeal of their projects. These books can come in all forms (such as paperback, hard cover, and e-book) and concern a wide, if not all inclusive, range of topics. Publishing through a trade book publisher is considered to be the most ‘conventional‘ or ‘traditional‘ method for clients when it comes to editing, publishing, and distributing their work. Sometimes, independent publishers outsource to these bigger trade book publishers.
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EXAMPLES OF TRADE BOOK PUBLISHERS (‘THE BIG FIVE’):
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SO, WHAT IS THE TEACHING PRESS?
To gain the best understanding of what The Teaching Press is considered to be, it may be best to hear straight from our director, Dr. Rebecca Meacham, herself.
As Meacham states, “The Teaching Press is most like a ’boutique/hybrid’ press. We offer clients our services to layout, edit, and design work; offer feedback and beta readings; and make books. Sometimes, we can print those books in limited editions (ex. 100 copies); sometimes, we create a file for the client to take elsewhere to print. We do not do marketing for all of our books; we do not hold copyright; we do not keep inventory; we do not sell books directly unless they are part of a launch event. We charge clients fees for our services. Our clients’ books, currently, would be termed ‘self-published.'”
However, she adds: “[The Teaching Press is] also like an ‘undergrad/university-affiliated’ press. Core to our identity is the ability for students to learn from, and assume leadership roles in, making books. Our projects and all steps of client engagement, and Teaching Press media and management, are meant to teach both ‘soft’ skills and technical skills. Our mottos, thus, are: ‘Failure is baked in to what our learners do;’ and ‘our clients should not expect competence.'”
Now, although The Teaching Press may align more so with these two categories of publishing presses, there truly is no doubt that we are just as dedicated and eager to offer the best experience we are capable of just like all the rest!
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BIBLIOGRAPHY (& ALSO RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING!):
THE TRADE BOOK PUBLISHER
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/types-of-book-publishers-2799865
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-trade-publishing-2800076
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