Introducing the Practices Book Series

Duke University Press is pleased to announce the launch of Practices, a new book series edited by Margret Grebowicz.  

Books in the Practices series are for real-life hobbyists, devotees, and enthusiasts. They are by and about amateurs in the original sense—those who engage in pursuits out of sheer love and fascination. Practices books show how an ordinary activity like fishing, running, or juggling helps us come to understand ourselves and the world around us. Sleek and incisive, they reveal the pleasures of losing oneself in doing anything that holds sway over us, no matter how common or minor it might seem. They map new places inside us. Practices books will intrigue and challenge an activity’s most ardent practitioners as well as those who never considered their appeal.

Editor Elizabeth Ault, who brought the series to the Press, says, “Practices represents the best of what Duke University Press is known for while also representing a new set of opportunities for us, highlighting distinctive and thoughtful voices from inside and outside the academy in deep and playful conversations. The books are stylish and companionable invitations to reflect on the practices they highlight as well as those that form our own ways of being in the world.”

The first Practices books will be published in March 2023. 

•  Fly-Fishing by Christopher Schaberg. The author, who grew up fly-fishing in Northern Michigan and now casts his rod in Louisiana’s bayous, ponders his lifetime pursuit of the widely mythologized art of fly fishing.
• Juggling by Stewart Lawrence Sinclair. Sinclair—who learned to juggle as a child and paid his way through college by busking—shares his experiences of taking up juggling after an episode of suicidal ideation, his time juggling on the streets and, ultimately, finding comfort in juggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Raving by McKenzie Wark. Wark takes readers into the undisclosed locations of New York’s thriving queer rave scene, showing how raving to techno is an art and technique at which queer and trans bodies might be particularly adept, but which is for anyone who lets the beat seduce them.
• Running by Lindsey A. Freeman. Former college track athlete Freeman presents a feminist and queer handbook of running in which she considers what it means to run as a visibly queer person while exploring how running puts us in contact with ourselves and others.

We hope the books’ design will encourage collecting multiple volumes. They will be produced in a small 5×7 format and will share a similar look and feel, making it easy for booksellers to display them together.

Future books in the series will address jigsaw puzzling and foraging. Margret Grebowicz is soliciting additional books for Practices. Interested authors can send a pitch to dukepractices@gmail.com. 

Editorial Director Gisela Fosado says, “Duke University Press is known for publishing provocative and creative ideas and the Practices series will continue this tradition, but in the form of snappy little books with broad appeal. During these unsettling times, learning about meaning-making through life practices is a salve we all need.”