The University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce that William Masami Hammell has joined the Press as senior acquisitions editor. Will has 20 years of publishing and editorial experience, including over a decade in scholarly book acquisitions, most recently at Cambridge University Press, where he acquired new titles and managed multiple series in African and Middle Eastern studies, focusing on history, politics, religion, and anthropology. Prior to that, he was editor and director of publications at the Harvard University Asia Center, acquiring and producing award-winning monographs in East Asian studies. He got his start in book publishing at Temple…

Brazil marks the bicentennial of its political independence today, September 7th, but for many Brazilians it has been difficult to generate much excitement to celebrate the great date. Despite the country’s strong public health tradition and its high vaccination rate, its experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a brutal one, with almost 700,000 deaths second only to the United States. As Brazilians face the same inflation worries as much of the globe, the strong economic growth the country enjoyed in 2021 in the aftermath of the worst of pandemic-related woes has faltered this year. And the health of its…

We are pleased to announce that Lesley Rains, former manager and buyer for the City of Asylum Bookstore and founder of the East End Book Exchange (now White Whale Books), has joined the University of Pittsburgh Press as Publicity Manager. “Lesley’s experience in front-line bookselling brings a real understanding of the importance of publicity to sell books in a competitive retail environment,” said Marketing Director John Fagan. Lesley will oversee all publicity efforts at the Press, including soliciting reviews, scheduling author events, and submitting books for a wide range of regional and national prizes. She will work with all Press…

The University of Pittsburgh Press is proud to be taking part in the first ever Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books on Saturday, May 14! The first ever GPFB is an all day, free event, spread across six venues in East Liberty, paying tribute to Pittsburgh’s rich literary community and love of reading. Featuring over thirty nationally renowned authors with ties to Pittsburgh, dozens of amazing poets, kids story times and activities, entertainment, books and comic stores, publishers, and more—it will be a true celebration. A number of Press authors will be giving readings and signing books, and we will also…

Anuradha Bhowmik of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the 2021 winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her collection Brown Girl Chromatography, selected by new Starrett Poetry Prize judge and award-winning poet Aaron Smith. Bhowmik, a Bangladeshi-American poet and writer from South Jersey, will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Pitt Poetry Series this fall, on sale September 2022. “Brown Girl Chromatography is pure fire, a slow burn to the center of desire,” said Smith. “This is a book of longing, of brokenness, of makeup (‘my second art, the perfect counterpart to my alter ego’), of…