Thank you for your interest in publishing your work with the University of Texas Press! Before submitting a proposal, please review the acquisitions areas of our editors to determine the best person to contact about your project. The University of Texas Press acquisitions team prefers electronic submissions of queries and proposals. We are unable to return unsolicited physical materials that have been mailed to the Press. We do not publish unsolicited fiction or poetry, and we consider only a limited number of edited collections or memoir projects.
Casey Kittrell, Editor-in-Chief
Email: ckittrell@utpress.utexas.edu
Twitter: @ecaseykittrell
Acquisitions areas: Anthropology, Archaeology, Food Studies, Music, Texas
Series: American Music Series, Music Matters
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A good portion of my acquisitions are trade titles intended for a broad audience, including readers outside academia. I handle cookbooks, memoirs by musicians, and gift books about Texas, for instance, as well as scholarly monographs. My experience has led me to value authors who are committed to writing accessibly and shaping their work to engage readers new to their topic, whether those readers are undergraduates in a first-year seminar or home cooks looking to expand their weeknight menus. I am drawn to projects by authors from communities whose perspectives have been historically marginalized, that display new modes of inquiry and new forms of storytelling, or that present especially challenging fieldwork; the goal is to immediately engage readers by giving them something they have not seen before.
I have been at UT Press since 2005, and my acquisitions have included Hanif Abdurraqib’s New York Times best seller Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest; The Jemima Code by Toni Tipton-Martin, who has received both the James Beard Award and the Julia Child Award; and the memoir All I Ever Wanted by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Kathy Valentine.
Kerry Webb, Senior Acquisitions Editor
Email: kwebb@utpress.utexas.edu
Acquisitions areas: American studies, Black studies, Latin American studies, Latinx studies
Series: Border Hispanisms, Historia USA, Latinx: The Future is Now, Visualidades
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I am interested in engaging across many different disciplines within Chicanx/Latinx and Latin American studies, and I enjoy reading proposals that present challenging scholarly ideas and arguments. The books I acquire tend to be interdisciplinary by nature, and I frequently work within the fields of Afro-Latinx studies, history, gender and sexuality studies, art history and visual culture, American and cultural studies, and sociology. I am also interested in trade and crossover books on all sorts of topics related to Latinx and Chicanx culture, history, migration studies, and Latin American history.
In addition to a BA and MA in history, I did some graduate work with a focus on Peru and Japan at UT Austin. I began my publishing career as an intern at Penguin Books in London before transitioning to acquisitions work at Louisiana State University Press and the University of Tennessee Press. I joined the University of Texas Press in 2014.
Christina Vargas, Editorial Assistant
Email: cvargas@utpress.utexas.edu
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I support Casey Kittrell and Kerry Webb with their acquisitions work, which includes Chicanx/Latinx studies and history, Latin American and pre-Columbian studies, anthropology, archeology, nature and environment, food studies, music, and Texas. I respond to questions regarding their acquisitions and general inquiries. I also assist the entire acquisitions team throughout the publishing process with such tasks as writing contracts and transmitting manuscripts to copyediting.
I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in English and a Creative Writing Certificate. Prior to joining UT Press in 2021, I served as the literature editor for the online publication Latinx Spaces, and I am a member of the Latinx Author Programming Committee for the Texas Book Festival.
Jim Burr, Senior Acquisitions Editor
Email: jburr@utpress.utexas.edu
Acquisitions areas: Film and media studies, Middle Eastern studies, Classics
Series: 21st Century Film Essentials, Cities and Communities of the Etruscans, Connected Histories of the Middle East and the Global South, Texas Film and Media Studies, World Comics and Graphic Nonfiction
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I’m always looking for smart, interesting projects that cover new material or look at old topics in fresh, exciting ways. Within film and media studies, areas of interest include, but are not limited to, gender and sexuality, horror, comedy, comics, industry history, and star studies. Within Middle Eastern studies, projects on cultural studies, gender, history, nation building, and North Africa are of special interest. And in the field of classics, I welcome proposals on visual arts, gender, law and oratory, the Etruscans, and historiography. In addition to the series I acquire, I also work with UT Austin’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies to distribute their Modern Middle Eastern Literatures in Translation and Emerging Voices from the Middle East series.
My acquisitions work in classics connects to my BA in classics from Michigan State University as well as an MA in classics from the University of Texas at Austin. I joined UT Press as a publishing fellow and have been with the press since 1996.
Sarah McGavick, Acquisitions Editor
Email: smcgavick@utpress.utexas.edu
Acquisitions areas: American studies, Black studies, border studies, history, sports, Texas
Series: Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports
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I am excited about work that explores the intersections of identities, communities, geographies, and disciplines. Within American studies, Black studies, border studies, and history, my interests include but are by no means limited to cultural studies, gender and sexuality, the built environment, labor, sport, and technology. I acquire a broad range of books on Texas, from history to art to politics; I’m especially interested in projects that tell the stories of underrecognized people and events, bring marginalized communities to the fore, and approach well-known histories from new directions.
I hold BAs in English and French literature and have done graduate work in library and information studies. I began my publishing career by copyediting romance novels, and I have also worked with transportation and infrastructure scholarship. I joined UT Press in 2013 as an editorial assistant.
Mia I. Uribe-Kozlovsky, Editorial Assistant
Email: m.uribekozlovsky@utpress.utexas.edu
Twitter: @mia_UribeKo
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As an editorial assistant, I support Jim Burr’s and Sarah McGavick’s acquisition work. Their lists work across disciplines, with projects situated in American studies, Black studies, Classics, border studies, comics studies, film & media studies, Texas history, Middle Eastern studies, and Jewish studies. As an art historian by training, my interests lie largely with Latinx art’s social engagement in methodologies and I am especially enthusiastic about projects that explore relationships between visual culture, race, gender, and sexuality, at both the local and international levels.
I received a BA in Art, with a specialization in Art History, from Reed College and a MA in Art History at Tulane University, where I studied zines, independently published works, by Latinx millennials in South Texas. With a background in art conservation and bookselling, I joined UT Press as a publishing fellow in 2021.
Robert Devens, Director
Email: rdevens@utpress.utexas.edu
Acquisitions areas: architecture
Series: Lateral Exchanges
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My acquisitions interests include a wide variety of areas relating to the built environment. These include architecture, urban and planning history, landscape and environmental studies, and more. UT Press has particular strengths in studies that look at the circulation of ideas and models across regions and cultures (see, especially, our Lateral Exchanges series); books that critically explore the professions and futures of architecture and planning; examinations of the built environments of Texas and the North American West; and works that illuminate the history of cities. In my twenty-plus years working on books in related fields, I’ve been honored to collaborate with countless terrific authors, and I am always eager to hear about new works in progress.
