As part of our ongoing Editor Spotlight Series, we connected with UC Press Associate Editor Naja Pulliam Collins to talk about her role as the new Environmental Studies and Geography Editor, what kinds of projects she’s looking for, and how authors can connect.
How did you become an editor at UC Press? Tell us more about your background.
Prior to coming to UC Press, I spent several years teaching English as a second language to students in Malaysia and China, and I was an assistant editor for a regional tourism magazine in my home state of Missouri. I came to UC Press as an editorial assistant for our former environmental studies editor, Stacy Eisenstark and our modern history editor, Niels Hooper. In that role, I learned so much about the work of a book acquisitions editor, as well as about university presses and book publishing more broadly. When this role became available, I jumped at the opportunity.
Book publishing can be very difficult to break into, and once you do, upward mobility within a press is challenging because positions do not become available very frequently. So when they do, there is strong competition. I feel very fortunate to continue my publishing career here. This role comes with a lot of responsibility and opportunity. Many scholars in the disciplines I acquire in are pushing the academy to be more diverse in myriad ways and pushing their disciplines to be more thoughtful about their interaction with the communities that they study. Many scholars are enthusiastic about the perspective I bring as a non-academic and a person of color. I can’t leave my identity at the door in any interaction, so I use it as a strength to start conversations that get to the heart of the book. My perspective ultimately makes me a better advocate for the book and the author.
What’s your favorite thing about UC Press?
All of my colleagues across departments are extremely supportive and encouraging. In my department in particular, I am lucky to have mentors in all of my colleagues, who have a range of experience and are always happy to share their opinions, advice, and enthusiasm for the projects I am working on. I also feel very lucky to be able to develop in my career alongside our two other associate editors, Enrique Ochoa-Kaup and LeKeisha Hughes, who constantly impress, encourage, and inspire me.
To me, the environmental studies list is very indicative of our identity as a press: interdisciplinary, justice-oriented, and globally-focused.
Naja Pulliam Collins
How would you describe the role of an editor? What most excites you about this role?
I think of my role as a press liaison and enthusiastic supporter and partner for my authors. I spend a lot of time working with authors to make decisions about style, organization, and determining the best path forward for revisions. I also guide them through the different stages of the publishing process. Within the press, I communicate the author’s vision for their book to our team who will use that to inform marketing, publicity, design, and production decisions.
What excites me most about this role is that I’m always learning from the work people bring to me, and that I am constantly having really fascinating conversations. I use my position as an editor to ask questions and to provide feedback to help authors strengthen their argument. By the time scholars feel ready to share a proposal or a manuscript with an editor, they are so close to the work that they might not notice places where their argument is not linear or fleshed out, and I think that is where my perspective can be really helpful.
What drew you to your disciplines? What do you find most exciting about your fields?
There is definitely something unique about acquiring in both environmental studies and geography. I believe that climate change and environmental justice are some of the most urgent issues in the current moment and scholars in both of these disciplines are very concerned with these topics in overlapping ways.
To me, the environmental studies list is very indicative of our identity as a press: interdisciplinary, justice-oriented, and globally-focused. We are known for publishing on water, fire, and climate change and I will certainly continue to focus on those topics. I am interested in publishing more on climate emotions and climate anxiety. I’m also drawn to work focused on finding solutions to or mitigating the effects of ecological harm caused by climate change, especially those concerned with justice and the uneven distribution of ecological harm for poor communities and communities of color.
Geography is a more nascent list and I am enthusiastic about projects that critically engage with Black Studies, American Studies, Indigenous Studies, and questions of justice and power, place, community, and identity. I am really excited to work with critical and human geographers who are working across disciplines on related topics and who are embedded within the communities they study beyond their academic pursuits.
I’m excited to work with diverse scholars to expand representation in the academy, including BIPOC scholars, LGBTQIA scholars, women, femme, and non-binary scholars, indigenous scholars, scholars living and working in the Global South, and those who identify as first-generation.
Naja Pulliam Collins
What kinds of projects are you looking for?
There are projects across several of our lists that have inspired my own approach to the Geography list, such as works that explore racial dynamics, gentrification, and environmental disruption in historically majority black and brown cities like Before Gentrification by Tonya Golash Boza and Toxic City by Lindsey Dillon. Works about sustainable infrastructure and city design like Reimagining Sustainable Cities by Stephen M. Wheeler and Christina D. Rosan. And books that critically look at how communities interact with the state and environment over resource conflicts like Urban Ecologies on the Edge by Kristian Karlo Saguin. I’m also really excited for works that explore land reclamation movements by indigenous communities and activist groups like Disrupting the Patrón by Joel E. Correia and Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land by David E. Gilbert.
Across both lists, I’m excited to work with diverse scholars to expand representation in the academy, including BIPOC scholars, LGBTQIA scholars, women, femme, and non-binary scholars, indigenous scholars, scholars living and working in the Global South, and those who identify as first-generation. I do think that as a press we have done a good job of publishing a diverse array of scholars and I am encouraged that there is active conversation at the press about how to not only publish but support our authors who are a part of these communities. I want to build on that so that our list of authors better reflects the demographics of the world we live in.
How can folks connect with you?
If you have a book idea or proposal, please email me at npulliamcollins@ucpress.edu.