Monday Musings #33 Goodbye, Again, Trinity University Press

It was big news in 2002 when Trinity University announced the rebirth of Trinity University Press and the hiring of its new champion, the poet and publisher Barbara Ras. Backed by a $2.9 million grant from the Ewing-Halsell Foundation and an additional annual commitment of financial support from then-President John Brazil, Ras arrived with a splash and a vision for publishing national as well as local authors.

After a 13-year hiatus, Trinity was back in the business of publishing fiction and non-fiction writers.

Ras had most recently worked at the University of Georgia Press, known for its deep back list of published books and its highly competitive annual literary awards. Previously, she had spent a decade at the University of California Press and West Coast boutique publishers.

Sidenote: Georgia Press’ most distinguished award, the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, was won in 2008 by Andrew Porter, an award-winning author of fiction and Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Trinity University.

There was a sense with Ras’ arrival and the revival of Trinity Press that San Antonio had taken another big step forward by returning a university press to the city’s profile. Over the ensuing years, the press contributed significantly to efforts by Trinity University’s leadership to integrate the school more directly into San Antonio’s civic and cultural life. The school had long been seen as a bubble with its stately campus and small, privileged student body largely disconnected from city life.

Ras left after 15 years to return to a life of full-time writing, and Tom Payton, her longtime number two, took over. Payton left in April and moved to Mexico, six months after informing the current university leadership that he intended to step down. I am not privy to Payton’s reasons for leaving, but I suspect he knew the administration no longer supported the press or its need for annual subsidies.

Payton’s number two, Burgin Streetman, who seemed to shoulder most of the day-to-day organizational and promotional work, had left in the summer of 2024 to pursue a fine arts graduate degree at Texas State University.

The news finally became official last week: Trinity Press was once again shutting down. Word of the looming closure had been an open secret in the Trinity community for weeks. Several people I spoke with had hoped for a last-minute reprieve, but Trinity University’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Megan Mustain, confirmed the shutdown in a Wednesday email to faculty and administration.

"After careful consideration of the strategic needs of the university," she wrote, "I have decided to begin a 16-month process of sunsetting the operations of Trinity University Press, which will close in December 2026."

The use of the word “sunsetting” gave the closure announcement the tone of a government bureaucratic dressing up bad news in happy talk, but a range of authors of and press supporters expressed dismay that a university with a reported $1.9 billion endowment could not find a few hundred thousand dollars each year to keep the press publishing and its back list of 300 titles available.

Mustain was vague about what developments prompted the university to yet again close its press. Some in the Trinity community believe she lacked interest in its mission, seeing it as unrelated to the university’s educational offerings. In her five years at Trinity, Mustain, as far as I know, never attended a single literary event organized by Trinity Press, even though Payton reported directly to her.

And while Payton gave the university six months' notice of his planned departure, no national search was undertaken to replace him. 

The announcement left many questions unanswered, including what will happen to those 300 previously published titles, which could be acquired by another university press or could go out of print. The announcement also did not disclose what would happen to the Ewing-Halsell gift that was given to fund the restart of Trinity Press. In all likelihood, the foundation will allow Trinity to keep the fund which, I‘m told, has grown to $3 million over the last two decades.

For local authors whose unpublished books had been acquired by Trinity Press for future publication, the outlook is not good. Mustain said in her announcement that Trinity would work with other university presses to place the books, but that might not yield many new publishing commitments. Other university presses are unlikely to pick up many of the unpublished titles.

Ironically, Trinity Press this month published a new edition featuring Ras’ celebrated poem, You Can’t Have it All, with paintings by artist Terrell James. The former press director’s latest book will be one of the last published here.

Payton oversaw the opening of a new, off-campus headquarters for Trinity Press in October 2024 in the Monte Vista neighborhood at the corner of Woodlawn and North Main Avenues. The venue, Payton said at the opening, would serve as an event space for author events and readings. At the time, he reiterated the university press’s commitment to publish 22 new titles each year. 

Some authors and press supporters assumed the new space would also serve as a bookshop, but buyers are redirected to the Twig Bookshop at the Pearl and Nowhere Books in Alamo Heights. The event space, which does not include a retail book operation, presumably will close sometime in the 16-month “sunsetting” period.

Texas does have a number of other university presses, notably University of Texas Press in Austin and Texas A&M University Press in College Station, as well as Texas Tech University Press in Lubbock, The University of North Texas Press in Denton, Texas Christian University Press in Fort Worth, and Baylor University Press in Waco.

Book sales, however, continue to decline, making it unlikely that UT-San Antonio or any other higher ed institution in San Antonio will acquire the Trinity catalog and serve as a publishing platform for authors who might not otherwise find a publisher. For San Antonio, its community of writers and readers, the closure of Trinity University Press is déjà vu. Only this time there is little or no chance of it opening yet again.