Purple Paw Press
Purple Paw Press is the publishing imprint of the Department of Languages & Literatures. Designed to provide a means to recognize student work and to give L&L students direct publishing experience, PPP allows departmental programming, student-led initiatives, and class projects to be published and nationally distributed.
NEW FROM PPP: During the Spring 2025 semester, students in Professor Jim O'Loughlin's Craft of Fiction class conceived, designed, and wrote three separate anthologies of original fiction:
• To the End of Our Line, a compilation of stories following one family's quest for power across generations
• If These Walls Could Talk, an anthology of stories set at the same location across time
• The Lake House Lies, a murder mystery written as a collective novella
These projects are available now in digital format from Amazon.com (print versions coming this summer!). Production assistance was provided by students in Professor Lamberti's Introduction to Professional Writing class.
On Halloween 2024, students in Brooke Wonders's class, Studies in Literature: Dark Fantasy and Horror, were the featured readers at the Final Thursday Reading Series, where they shared original stories of terror and dread. The presentations from that evening are at the bleeding heart of A Night of Monsters, a collection of horror writing by 16 students from that class. Such synergies, combining students' coursework with community engagement and publication opportunities, are the kind of experience the Department of Languages & Literatures prides itself on being able to provide.
Currently, PPP has published three collections of the University of Northern Iowa Writing Competition (2023-24, 2022-23 and 2021-22) celebrating the best of writing by Iowa high school students. This publication is also part of the scholarship competition that provides UNI scholarship to the authors of winning selections in English (Creative Writing and Critical Writing), French, and Spanish. The creation of the books has been integrated into Professional Writing classes taught by Professor Adrienne Lamberti.
PPP is also part of Amazon Advantage, a program that allows the Press to distribute publications nationally. This program also gives the Press access to Kindle Direct Publishing, which can allow for “digital first” publications that can simultaneously be made available for the Kindle platform and in print.
Past work from Craft of Fiction students includes the following Spring 2024 anthologies of original fiction (also produced with the assistance of students in Professor Lamberti's Introduction to Workplace Writing class):
• Monsters Declassified, a speculative compilation on otherworldly (and all too worldly) creatures
• Nexus Six, a thriller written as a collective novel
• Some Context Required, an experimental collection based on the surrealist concept of the "exquisite corpse"
As Dr. Lamberti notes, “Our department connects students with a wonderful variety of writing and publishing opportunities, and Purple Paw Press offers publishing experience that's both customizable and scalable. For instance, students in one class might design content for an upcoming title throughout the semester, while in another class, students might spend one concentrated lesson unit on writing publicity content. The press also vertically integrates authors across the department. One publication project might largely be written by a faculty member but its layout designed by students, while another title might be entirely student-composed with contributions from a couple of faculty."
Keep an eye on this page for announcements about future publications from Purple Paw Press!