Meet Our Editorial Staff
Mark Simpson-Vos
Editorial Director
As Editorial Director, I am the administrative head of the Press's acquisitions program. I develop and acquire scholarly and general interest books in the fields of American studies, Native American and indigenous studies, ethnohistory, nature, and environmental studies. My interests in these areas are broad and interdisciplinary. I particularly welcome proposals that reflect superior scholarly research and endeavor to contextualize and explain key subjects, moments, and issues for a wider public. As the Press's editor for our Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-supported "Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement" project, I am also pleased to receive proposals for work that contributes to our understanding of the African American freedom struggle and related twentieth-century social movements. Finally, I acquire books for the Press's regional general interest list, with a particular focus on hiking and outdoor guides, nature and natural history, regional reference, popular history, and North Caroliniana. My scholarly background is in American literature and American studies, including graduate work (M.A., 1995; A.B.D., 1998) at UNC-Chapel Hill. I've been a member of the Press staff since 1998.
Mark Simpson-Vos is assisted by Zachary Read.
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David Perry
Editor-in-Chief & Assistant Director
I began acquiring and developing manuscripts for UNC Press in the early eighties, with a special interest in books about North Carolina and the region. Today I acquire titles in history, Civil War and military history, and southern studies, in addition to general trade books.
Series: New Directions in Southern Studies (Charles Reagan Wilson, editor); Civil War America (Gary Gallagher, editor); The Luther H. Hodges Jr. and Luther H. Hodges Sr. Series on Business, Society, and the State; Justice, Power, and Politics (Heather H. Thompson and Rhonda K. Williams, editors). Visit our series page for more information about our series.
David Perry is assisted by Caitlin Bell-Butterfield.
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Chuck Grench
Senior Editor & Assistant Director
I acquire trade books, scholarly works, and textbooks for general readers, scholars, and students. My list areas include U.S. history, African American studies, business history, Cold War history, cultural history, diplomatic history, early American studies, legal history, political history, Southern history, the history of the American West, and women's history. I seek to strengthen our list in these areas through acquisitions, commissions, and selective distributions. I also sponsor our highly selective European history and Greek and Roman history lists and I am building a list in the history of craft.
Series: The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture (Waldo E. Martin, Jr. and Patricia Sullivan, editors); The New Cold War History (Odd Arne Westad, editor); The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia (Fredrika J. Teute, editor of publications); Studies in the History of Greece and Rome (Robin Osborne, James Rives, and Richard J. A. Talbert, editors). Visit our series page for more information about our series.
Chuck Grench is assisted by Sara Cohen.
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Elaine Maisner
Senior Executive Editor
I acquire and develop books spanning the range from scholarly to general interest in the areas of religious studies; Latin American and Caribbean studies; and regional trade. In religious studies, I have strong interests in American religion in all its varieties, practices, histories, meanings, and effects; I am particularly interested in studies of Islam, anywhere in the world, that connect the tradition to contemporary ways of understanding. We feature a broad-based Latin American and Caribbean studies program, and one of our special interests is work that connects important themes throughout the Americas and the Atlantic region. I am also interested in books that can be used effectively in teaching. In regional trade, one of my specialties is cookbooks and foodways books.
Series: Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks (Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, editors); Envisioning Cuba (Louis A. Perez Jr., editor); Latin America in Translation/en Traducción/em Traduçao; The Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History. Visit our series page for more information about our series.
Click here to listen to an audio interview in which Elaine talks about her program in foodways.
Elaine Maisner is assisted by Caitlin Bell-Butterfield.
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Joseph Parsons
Senior Editor
I seek scholarly and general interest books that both contribute to their disciplines and demonstrate thoughtful engagement with broader issues in the social sciences and humanities. My specific acquisitions interests include the areas of health and health policy, politics (including political science, political history, and contemporary affairs), public policy, media and journalism (including media policy and ethics and long-form journalism), and geography.
Series: Studies in Social Medicine (Allan Brandt, Larry Churchill, and Jonathan Oberlander, editors). Visit our series page for more information about our series.
Joe Parsons is assisted by Sara Cohen.
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Zachary Read
Assistant Editor
I assist Mark Simpson-Vos and will answer any questions you may have about his list areas, in addition to handling any general editorial questions. In 2005, I received my M.A. from the Creative Writing Program at Boston University, where I focused on fiction writing and studied English literature. In 2000, I received my B.A. in English from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.
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Caitlin Bell-Butterfield
Editorial Assistant
I assist David Perry and Elaine Maisner, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have about their areas of acquisition, in addition to general editorial queries. In 2008, I received my B.A. from Hampshire College with concentrations in southern literature and literary theory.
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Sara Cohen
Editorial Assistant
I assist Chuck Grench and Joseph Parsons and am happy to answer any questions you may have about their list areas, as well as any general editorial questions. I received by B.A. in English from Rutgers College in 2004 and my Ph.D. in English from the University of Minnesota in 2011.
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