Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Press has established the Bruce and Georgia McEver Fund for the Arts and Environment to underwrite the publication of a wide range of scholarly and general interest books in the areas of poetry, landscape architecture, historic preservation, environmental planning and related topics.
The McEver Fund will support the Georgia Poetry Prize, a new award established in partnership with UGA, Georgia State and Georgia Tech. The contest will be formally announced later this year, with the press publishing the winning collection annually beginning in 2016. The fund will also provide support for a range of book projects on the built environment, including the Library of American Landscape History series, a study of architect Leila Ross Wilburn, a photographic account of historic rural churches of Georgia, and a native plant landscape gardening guide.
McEvers’ gift to the press honors his late wife. “Georgia McEver was my wife, an artist, an opera singer and an inspiration herself. Her death motivated my first book of poems. By establishing this fund and related poetry prize, I hope to inspire other poets to produce their first published work,” he said.
Bruce McEver is founder and chairman of Berkshire Capital Securities LLC and member of the University of Georgia Press Advisory Council. McEver is on the board of Poets House (New York, New York) and a member of the Dean’s Council at the Harvard Divinity School and the Candler School at Emory. He has published three books of poetry and is a professor of practice at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is a founding supporter of the Poetry at Tech program.
Craig Barrow III, chair of the press’s advisory council, said, “Bruce McEver has made a substantial contribution to the success of the University of Georgia Press. His gift will sustain the publication of excellent scholarship and poetry for years to come.”
“Bruce is a lifelong student and champion of the arts and humanities,” said UGA Press director Lisa Bayer. “His generosity will enable the press to continue to publish important works of scholarship and literature that enrich us intellectually and spiritually.”
UGA Press
Founded in 1938, the University of Georgia Press is the oldest and largest book publisher in the state. It has been a member of the Association of American University Presses since 1940. With a full-time staff of 26 publishing professionals, the press currently publishes 60-70 new books a year and has more than 1,800 titles in print. It has well-established lists in Atlantic World and American history, American literature, African-American studies, Southern studies and environmental studies, as well as a growing presence in the fields of food studies, geography, urban studies, international affairs and security studies. For more information on UGA Press, see www.ugapress.org/.
