LSU Press

Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel’s "Seeking Freedom in Indian Country," out now, is the first comprehensive study of African chattel slavery within the Five Tribes. In this sweeping and important study, Oertel examines how chattel slavery functioned among all Five Tribes before and during the removal process, how the tribes reconstituted slavery post-removal in Indian Territory, and how enslaved Black people promoted freedom-seeking strategies at each stage. Furthermore, her work considers how the conflict over slavery in Indian Territory contributed to the larger national debate over slavery’s fate on the eve of the Civil War.

📕 https://bit.ly/seekingfreedom-lsup

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Top image: Portrait of Abraham, a Black interpreter and leader of the free Black community in Indian Territory. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections, image 490272.

Bottom image: Portrait of Coacoochee or Wild Cat, the Seminole chief who led a group of Seminole, Muscogee, and enslaved and free Blacks to Mexico. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division,
New York Public Library Digital Collections, image 490274.

Left image: Portrait of John Horse, also known as Gopher John and Juan Caballo, a Black interpreter and leader who traveled to Mexico with Coacoochee. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York
Public Library Digital Collections, image 490271.

Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel’s "Seeking Freedom in Indian Country," out today, is the first comprehensive study of African chattel slavery within the Five Tribes: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations. In this sweeping and important study, Oertel examines how chattel slavery functioned among all Five Tribes before and during the removal process, how the tribes reconstituted slavery post-removal in Indian Territory, and how enslaved Black people promoted freedom-seeking strategies at each stage. Furthermore, her work considers how the conflict over slavery in Indian Territory contributed to the larpiger national debate over slavery’s fate on the eve of the Civil War.

📕 https://bit.ly/seekingfreedom-lsup

-

Top image: Portrait of Abraham, a Black interpreter and leader of the free Black community in Indian Territory. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections, image 490272.

Bottom image: Portrait of Coacoochee or Wild Cat, the Seminole chief who led a group of Seminole, Muscogee, and enslaved and free Blacks to Mexico. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division,
New York Public Library Digital Collections, image 490274.

Left image: Portrait of John Horse, also known as Gopher John and Juan Caballo, a Black interpreter and leader who traveled to Mexico with Coacoochee. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York
Public Library Digital Collections, image 490271.

"The project represents its period of time. It’s a very recent period, but not unlike recorded histories of the far past that tell retrospective narratives that differ from what the people who were living them felt they were experiencing as it happened. My nonfiction is already preserving a lost, more promising era."

Leslie Lindsay This Is Where We Live had a great conversation with Rose McLarney about her lyric essay collection, "Rubble Masonry," in Hippocampus Magazine and Books:

INTERVIEW: Rose McLarney, Author of Rubble Masonry | Hippocampus Magazine "I suppose there’s a hopelessness to wanting the past, since we can’t go back, yet we must progress forward...." -- Rose McLarney

"There's no place like it in all of America. It's not just that we have dishes too, but we have a way and style of cooking. The food is so intertwined with the culture. It's almost like the culture is inseparable from the way that we view food."

The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) interviewed Ken Wells about his new LSUP book, "Boudin":

Read about the rise of boudin and its Continental French roots in this travelogue Where does the boudin firmament stand? A question Ken Wells explores in his book “Boudin" from LSU Press.

Goodbye, ! Here are a couple of photos from the Book, Jacket, and Journal Show (featuring "War Fought and Felt" and "The New Rules of Dining Out"), and a great panel discussion by this year's jurors! Thanks for having us, Seattle 💜

Saluting our 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 Board of Directors, many of whom are pictured here with new President Stephanie Williams (Wayne State University Press) and immediate past President Dennis Lloyd (University of Wisconsin Press), seated in front. We appreciate your leadership! https://bit.ly/4fO6hMX

In particular we welcome our new Board members: President-elect Mary C. Francis, University of Pennsylvania Press, Treasurer-elect Katie Hannah University of Tennessee Press & Davida Breier, Hopkins Press. And we recognize Brent Oberlin of MIT Press, who takes on duties as Treasurer for 2026-2027.

And we thank our departing Board members: Directors-at-Large Tara Cyphers, Ohio State University Press and John Sherer, University of North Carolina Press & past President Anthony Cond, Liverpool University Press.

Got my certificate! Many thanks to the Illinois Woman's Press Association for recognizing my book “Frank Zappa’s America” as Best General Adult Nonfiction book. It is truly an honor, and I’m grateful that my book has resonated so much with readers. Frank’s music wasn’t for everyone, but his message was and it still reverberates today.

“Frank Zappa’s America” is out now via LSU Press!

“Offer[s] a nuanced examination of the diverse and contradictory motives and identities that peninsular Spanish writers ascribed to Portuguese in Spanish America.” —David Wheat

Happy to Brian Hamm and "Strangers and Kinsmen"! https://bit.ly/strangers-and-kinsmen