FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Press has music for the ears of writing fans in October, a book about a free woman of color in antebellum Georgia in November, and a prisoner of war journal from Nazi Germany in December.

In addition to these three works, this fall the press has published two books of poetry and a history of the Mosaic Templars of America. These will be followed by books on the role of Texas in the Civil War, a book on race relations in Arkansas and a portrait of an Arkansas archeologist who strove to preserve the state’s prehistoric past.

“It’s a collection that has a little bit of something for everyone,” said Tom Lavoie, marketing director for the University of Arkansas Press.

The voices of Steve Martin, Roseanne Cash and Lucinda Williams, among others, tell stories of songs in The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, edited by Marc Smirnoff with a foreword by Van Dyke Parks. Fifty-five pieces in this anthology look at music from every angle.

From modern-day music to antebellum Georgia, the press takes readers on an entirely different journey in The Secret Trust of Aspasia Cruvellier Mirault. Author Janice L. Sumler-Edmond’s biography of a free woman of color, Mirault, a widowed matriarch who lived in Savannah, Ga., before the Civil War, provides a portrait of the antebellum South and tells the story of a remarkable woman.

In 1842 she entered into a secret trust with a white man whose help she needed to become a landowner. The outcome of this trust arrangement was finally determined by a three-party trial that went to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1878.

Sumler-Edmond’s book provides new perspectives on the African American experience while resurrecting the life of this woman, who until now was lost to historical memory.

From the antebellum South, the press jumps forward to a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany. Those who remember the film Stalag 17 and the television show Hogan’s Heroes won’t want to miss the journals of Claudio “Steve” Carano, who spent 18 months imprisoned in the camp after his B-17 bomber was shot down over the Dutch coast in December of 1943.

Not Without Honor: The Nazi POW Journal of Steve Carano, edited by Kay Sloan, weaves together the stories of three American prisoners of war – Carano, his friend Bill Blackmon, who also was at Stalag 17b, and John C. Bitzer, who survived the brutal “Death March” from northern Germany to liberation in April 1945.

Sometimes the journal reads like a thriller as Carano records air battles and escape attempts. At other times, the POWs concentrate on psychological survival. This book allows readers to follow the recording of their firsthand impressions of the best and worst of human nature.

From POW camps to poetry: The Arkansas Poetry Series, edited by Enid Shomer, has released two new collections. The Fire Landscape: Poems by Gary Fincke captures the essence of coming of age in post-1950s America. A Necklace of Bees: Poems by Dannye Romine Powell features poems that probe the nature of loss – actual and feared.

Poems give way to politics in A Pryor Commitment: The Autobiography of David Pryor, written by Pryor and Don Harrell, published by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and distributed by the press. Pryor served the state of Arkansas as a state representative, congressman, governor and U.S. senator, nearly half a century of public service. Pryor traces his career from richly detailed childhood memories to growing up to serve as an advocate for the most neglected segments of society.

The press has reprinted the history of a neglected segment of society – the Mosaic Templars of America. History of the Mosaic Templars of America by A. E. Bush and P.L. Dorman, originally published in 1924 and long out of print, tells the history of the Mosaic Templars, a famous black fraternal organization founded by two former slaves in Little Rock, Ark., in the late 19^th century. In the 1920s, the organization had chapters in 26 states and six foreign countries, making it one of the largest black organizations in the world. However, the organization dwindled under the weight of the Great Depression and eventually ceased to operate. The headquarters building burned down in 2005, and this book was re-published in conjunction with the grand opening of the rebuilt structure, which will house the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.

From the Mosaic Templars in Arkansas, the press turns its attention to the role of Texas in the Civil War. The Fate of Texas: The Civil War and the Lone Star State, edited by Charles D. Grear, contains 11 essays by noted historians covering a wide range of topics that provide new perspectives on the state’s unique position in the War Between the States. Looking at military, social and cultural history to public history and historical memory, the essays explore the lives of Texas women, slavery, veterans and how the state dealt with Confederate loss.

The Civil War is long over, but the history of race relations remains a current topic. Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas From Slavery to the Present by Grif Stockley describes the ways in which race has been at the center of much of the state’s formation and image since its founding. Topics range from the Little Rock Central High Crisis of 1957 to lesser-known events such as the Elaine Race Massacres of 1919. Through the voices of powerful Arkansans such as the racist Arkansas Governor Jeff Davis (1901-1906) and the narratives of former slaves, Stockley brings to life the ways that race has affected and continues to affect the people of Arkansas today.

The last book takes readers the furthest back in time, before European colonization and slavery hit the shores of the Americas. In Sam Dellinger: Raiders of the Lost Arkansas, author Robert C. Mainfort Jr. tells the story of a University of Arkansas professor who sought to preserve the state’s prehistoric past. During his time in Arkansas, he served as curator of the University Museum from 1925 to 1960 and gathered nearly 8,000 prehistoric artifacts. This collection of American Indian artifacts is now recognized as one of the finest in the country, and the fully illustrated book contains more than 200 images of them.