New Books Network

Today I’m speaking with Stephanie Williams, Director of Wayne State University Press, and president of the Association of University Presses. Every year, NBN speaks with the president of AUPresses in anticipation of University Press Week. This year, press week will take place from November 9 through the 13th, with the theme: #PowerUP. To celebrate, I’m thrilled to speak with Stephanie Williams about all things UPs.
University Press Week Info
Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Be the main character in the story that is your life – that is the ambition of eight remarkable women featured in Anne Fernald’s collective biography, Her Own Voice, guided by Virginia Woolf. We talk about Margaret Wise Brown, groundbreaking author of Goodnight Moon, addressed to young children and inspired by Gertrude Stein and Woolf, Jessie Redmon Fauset, prolific novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, and Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director to make both silent and sound films, inventor of the boom mic, and five other remarkable women who ignite our ability to change within the contingencies of our lives.
Uli Baer teaches literature and photography as University Professor at New York University.

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To listen to the entire four-part series, subscribe here.
In 2018, Gyula Remes died in the underpass at Westminster tube station, just steps from the Houses of Parliament and luxury developments worth millions. How could this happen in one of the richest cities on Earth?
Episode one introduces Gyula and the world he died in: a Westminster plagued by the twin crises of homelessness and empty homes. In a London borough where extreme wealth exists alongside extreme poverty, Kojo traces the circumstances of Gyula’s death and a troubling question emerges.
What begins as a local tragedy opens the door to a much larger system, which we open onto a strange land called ‘offshore’.
Kojo Karam is a Professor in Law and Political Economy at the School of Law at Loughborough University.

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Veronica Villarreal earned her joint MHA/MBA at the University of Houston–Clear Lake, took her first job out of the program at DHR Health in the Rio Grande Valley, and worked her way up through revenue cycle and operations into the C-suite. She served as Chief Ambulatory Officer over a network of roughly 75 clinic locations and more than 30 specialty service lines. She then moved to UT Health Rio Grande Valley, where she is now Chief Operating Officer.
Along the way, she wrote the book she wishes someone had handed her. C-Suite Bound: How Self-Discovery Leads to Ultimate Success became an Amazon bestseller and was featured in Forbes.
In this episode, Veronica traces the actual route: why revenue cycle turned out to be an executive on-ramp rather than a detour, what an interim title really tests, what it takes to move from a private specialty network into an academic health system, and why she thinks comparison is the thing most likely to derail a talented person’s career.
Flight Path is produced by the Department of Healthcare Administration at the University of Houston–Clear Lake, which has offered healthcare administration education since 1974 and is based in the Texas Medical Center.
A University of Houston - Clear Lake MHA/MBA grad who climbed from revenue cycle to COO, and then wrote the roadmap for everyone behind her.
GUEST BIO
Veronica Villarreal, MHA/MBA, is Chief Operating Officer of UT Health Rio Grande Valley.
At UT Health RGV, she previously served as Assistant Vice President of Operations, leading multi-site ambulatory operations.
Before that, she was Chief Ambulatory Officer at DHR Health Clinics, overseeing approximately 75 clinic locations across more than 30 specialty and sub-specialty service lines.
She began her career in ambulatory revenue cycle.
She is the author of C-Suite Bound: How Self-Discovery Leads to Ultimate Success, an Amazon bestseller featured in Forbes.
She holds a joint Master of Healthcare Administration and Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston–Clear Lake.
LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE
C-Suite Bound: How Self-Discovery Leads to Ultimate Success
Veronica’s website
Veronica on LinkedIn
UHCL alumni feature, “From quiet corners to big impact”

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The Rediscovery of George "Nash" Walker: : The Price of Black Stardom in Jim Crow America (SUNY Press, 2025) is the first biography dedicated to the life and cultural contributions of this actor, writer, and producer who revolutionized Black American theatre during the early twentieth century. In 1892, Walker left his hometown with a medicine show and quickly formed a partnership with comedian Bert Williams that would last nearly eighteen years. Under the moniker of “The Two Real Coons,” Williams and Walker used their comedy to erode the stereotyped White image of minstrel-style “cooning.” Their theatrical company produced many popular plays, including Clorindy/A Lucky Coon (1899–1900), Policy Players (1900–1901), Sons of Ham (1901–1902), In Dahomey (1902–1905), Abyssinia (1905–1906), Bandanna Land (1907–1909), and Mr. Lode of Koal (1909–1910), even performing on Broadway and abroad. An activist at heart, Walker insisted that audiences receive carefully curated Black entertainment, told from a uniquely Afro-American perspective. Unfortunately, Walker contracted syphilis and was forced to retire in 1909, marking the end of the first golden age of Black theatre. Despite his landmark contributions, Walker’s story has been largely forgotten. Drawing on archival resources, newspaper accounts, memoirs, oral histories, and manifestos written by Walker, this book celebrates the accomplishments of the vanguard generation of Black artists who were active between the close of the Civil War and the start of World War I.
Daniel Atkinson’s research and commitment to the legacy of George Walker and his generation is deep and authentic. Listen in on this fantastic conversation and check out also previous episodes with Dr. Cheryl Thompson and Es-pranza Humphry, both scholars of this era. And when you’re finished, head over to the Additions to the Archive Substack where we continued our conversation.
Daniel E. Atkinson is an independent scholar who earned his doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington where he specialized in Afro-American music and culture. You can find Daniel on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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