Arkansas Gems is an annual publication of the Arkansas Center for the Book. Posters and bookmarks are published to highlights new works about Arkansas or by authors from the Natural State. These are introduced each year at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Three titles from the University of Arkansas Press were selected as 2021 Gems:
Remote Access: Small Public Libraries in Arkansas by Sabine Schmidt and Don House – With their cameras and notebooks in hand, photographers Sabine Schmidt and Don House embarked on an ambitious project to document the libraries committed to serving Arkansas’s smallest communities. Remote Access is the culmination of this fascinating three-year effort, which took the artists to every region of their home state. Schmidt’s carefully constructed color images of libraries and the communities they serve and House’s rich black-and-white portraits of library patrons and staff shine alongside the authors’ personal essays about their experiences. The pages here come alive with a deep connection to Arkansas’s history and culture as we accompany the authors on visits to a section of the Trail of Tears near Parkin, to the site of the tragic 1959 fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, and to Maya Angelou’s childhood home in Stamps, among many other significant destinations. Through this testament to the essential role of libraries in the twenty-first century, Schmidt and House have created a clear-eyed portrait of contemporary rural life, delving into issues of race, politics, gender, and isolation as they document the remarkable hard work and generosity put forth in community efforts to sustain local libraries.
Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women’s Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1914-1965 by Cherisse Jones-Branch – The first major study to consider Black women’s activism in rural Arkansas, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps foregrounds activists’ quest to improve Black communities through language and foodways as well as politics and community organizing. In reexamining these efforts, Cherisse Jones-Branch lifts many important figures out of obscurity, positioning them squarely within Arkansas’s agrarian history. Centered on the period between 1914 and 1965, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps brings long-overdue attention to an important chapter in Arkansas history, spotlighting a group of Black women activists who uplifted their communities while subverting the formidable structures of white supremacy.
Double Toil and Trouble: A New Novel and Short Stories by Donald Harington, Edited by Brian Walter – Double Toil and Trouble is the first new volume of fiction in more than a decade by beloved Arkansas writer Donald Harington (1935–2009). Featuring a long-lost suspense novel and four previously unpublished or uncollected stories, this volume adds several new chapters to the saga of Stay More, the fictional Ozarks village that serves as the setting for more than a dozen other Harington novels.
Also, a selection from The Ozark Society:
Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Arkansas by Jennifer Ogle, Theo Witsell, and Johnnie Gentry – This attractive, heavily illustrated field guide is the most comprehensive accounting of the woody plants of Arkansas ever published.