By Alison Mero, Director
Day Four of the UP Week Blog Tour: When does your press Team UP?
When I was first hired at Clemson University Press, I had no idea I was joining a community of publishing professionals across South Carolina, the southeast, and the world. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what I’m now a part of. One of the great successes of our regional publishing community is the Piedmont Publishing Symposium (PPS).
Co-organized by Clemson University Press, University of North Georgia Press, University of South Carolina Press, and Hub City Press, the inaugural symposium took place in May 2025. Seventy-three people gathered at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC for a day and a half of sessions on publishing, marketing, and other book-related topics. Panel topics included finding the right publisher for your project, book production for authors, and a keynote on AI in publishing.
More importantly, authors and publishing professionals networked, conversed, and connected over our shared goals of making great books. Dawn Durante of University of North Carolina Press wrote up a summary of her experience in Feeding the Elephant, noting how the PPS embodied “a sense of the shared commitments and concerns of non-profit independent presses, university presses, and independent bookstores” and “a lesson in how building relationships and networks across the literary community–from children’s book publishers, to bloggers, to bookstores–can only help us navigate the current publishing landscape as an ecosystem.”
The 2025 PPS was hugely successful and we’re in the midst of planning the second annual symposium for May 20-21, 2026. The goal is to make the 2026 PPS bigger and better. Wofford College will host again, and we’ll have more sessions and even more people attending. The proposed schedule will have panels specifically pitched for authors, students, and publishers, although anyone is welcome to attend any of the sessions. I’m especially excited to bring in speakers on the benefits of getting a publishing degree and on the nuts and bolts of printing.
The theme for this year’s AUPresses week, #TEAMUP, encapsulates so much of what I love about publishing work. From daily collaboration with colleagues and authors to our partnerships with organizations inside and outside the university, teamwork is built into DNA of Clemson University Press. The Piedmont Publishing Symposium is a real triumph of teamwork among publishers to create what we hope will be an annual event.
Stay tuned for more details about the upcoming 2026 Piedmont Publishing Symposium, with registration details coming in the spring. We hope you’ll join us!
Photo credits: Mark Olencki/Wofford College
