Sonya Bonczek
@SonyaBonczek
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Director of Publicity @UNC_Press 📚📣 Currently reading Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music by Alice Gerrard (Dec 25) 📧: [email protected]
Joined October 2008
Been running into dads of my 3yo’s classmates and asking for their emails for his birthday party and so far 3 out of 3 dads have proceeded to give me their wives’ emails instead. This is now a social experiment.
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I love dissertation-to-first-book projects so much and will champion those authors, always. Everyone has to start somewhere. Support emerging scholars!.
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Did y'all know that @UNC_Press is publishing a second edition of Barbara Ransby's *Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement,* the definitive bio of one of the most important civil rights activists? It's got a new preface by BR and a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley.
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A NEW HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH 🤩🤩🤩 Hot off the press. Had to show off the front, spine, and back trifecta 📚
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OMFG Washington Post just reviewed @drewmckevitt's GUN COUNTRY and critic calls it ONE OF THE BEST WORKS OF NONFICTION THIS YEAR
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ATTN EVERYONE: Andrew C. Isenberg’s The Age of the Borderlands (April 2025) rewrites the story of Manifest Destiny. It reveals how Indigenous societies, enslaved people, and rival empires fiercely resisted US expansion, challenging the idea of “the land of the free.” Game changer
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What if I told you @UNC_Press has a book coming out in Fall 2025 with Kristina Gaddy and Rhiannon Giddens on early Black Atlantic banjo music? 👀🤩.
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Here is your chance to download a free copy of Robin D. G. Kelley's HAMMER AND HOE, a critical work that details how Black laborers & sharecroppers in the 1930s took on Alabama’s repressive, racist police state. Make sure to share with anyone you know in Florida, too.
Congratulations @HammerandHope: A MAGAZINE OF BLACK POLITICS AND CULTURE on the publication of your inaugural issue 👏🏾.The inspiration for the name HAMMER & HOPE👉🏾Robin D. G. Kelley's acclaimed HAMMER AND HOE, available for FREE download through 3/22!🔗👇🏾.
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Required reading if you’re an elder millennial like me interested in understanding how D.A.R.E. pushed forward the state’s carceral approach to the problem of drugs. #DareToSayYesToPreOrderingYourCopyToday
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@madisontayt_ @HoiPolloiBoiToy How about I won't vote for Harris unless she does this, at the very least, and I live in North fucking Carolina. @KamalaHarris.
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The funny thing about tweeting about a few dads who didn't want to give me their emails is that I'm now stuck deleting lots of message requests from dudes sending me their emails.
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Get yourself a copy of Emily Owens' CONSENT IN THE PRESENCE OF FORCE (out next week). Necessary reading. Emily uncovers the legal architecture that made sexual violence a central feature of antebellum slaveholding & illuminates the strategies enslaved women used to survive. 10/10
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I was only joking about a social experiment! But y'all went ahead and got the whole thing into the paper of record. Here, a real sociologist weighs in on the larger issue at hand
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📣Hey y'all, please join Team @UNC_Press Publicity in congratulating @hkyriakoudes on her well (extremely well) deserved promotion to Associate Publicist! Helen is brilliant and @wirechairs + I (and everyone at UNC) are so lucky to work with her. Congratulations, Helen! 🎉🎉🎉.
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Feeling very lucky to be working with the nicest authors around. UNC Press seems to attract those! And here's a pro tip: if you are nice to your book publicist, your book publicist will walk on hot coals to get you and your book the coverage it deserves.
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Some personal news: I have decided to stop getting stressed out by emails. Excited to take this next step in my career, thanks for all the support 🙏.
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How postwar consumer culture helps explain America's gun boom: @drewmckevitt's interview on @WPR's Central Time
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Oh no I tripped and all of these @UNC_Press galleys fell out of my tote, are there any readers who can help me, please!!
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"In Myers's skillful hands, the previously unknown story of Julia Chinn comes to life. This book powerfully illuminates the complexities of race, gender, and politics in American history." —@KeishaBlain . And don't miss what @ProfMSinha @dem8z @CurwoodA @HilaryGreen77 have to say
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I've been reading Black Movement, a sweeping look at 50 years of Black urban life after the Great Migration. Ogbar and contributors explore gentrification, suburbanization, police brutality, mass incarceration, and the cultural impact of music and entertainment on Black identity.
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Team @UNC_Press is HERE @2022SHA @TheSouthernSHA and we are very excited to talk books books books 📚🎙🥰
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On Jan 25, 1972, Shirley Chisholm--one of the most consequential Black women of the 20th century--formally announced her presidential bid. To celebrate, I have the LAST two galleys of @CurwoodA's glorious biography. RT and like for a chance to win a copy! #UnboughtandUnbossed
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Colleague. Mentor. Confidante. Friend. Now, officially my (interim) @UNC_Press Editorial Director. One of the very best things about my job is working with the one & only @DGershenowitz. Hats off to you, Debbie - can't wait to toast to you next week in NYC! 🥂🙌🎉.
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The smartest and most on point voice to listen to right now is @KeeangaYamahtta.
“The Democratic Party really underestimated the extent to which lots of people in this country are in crisis.” . Watch @KeeangaYamahtta and others in our expanded two-hour broadcast, live at
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My mother, one hell of a woman, passed away on Friday, holding on until I got to Boston and my brother and I could be by her side. Even in this grief, there's comfort in knowing she’s no longer suffering and that we can continue to love one another in the ways we always wanted💔.
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@JessGrose Sometimes your articles feel like you've been spying on my conversations with friends and spouse. This hit me hard: "we’re still too occupied by child care for additional crises.".
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If I was an author with a book coming out next year:.-I'd share the cover as soon as it was finalized on social media.-I'd drop the pre-order link once it was live, too.-I'd email my family, friends, colleagues to let them know why pre-orders matter.But I'm not, so I won't :).
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@buttpraxis Every single morning to my 4 (FOUR) yo: ok I know you couldn’t possibly get your shoes on by yourself so give me a minute to help you, only 6yos (his brother) can put their shoes on all by themselves.
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So I've been reading an early mss of Amy Erdman Farrell's forthcoming @UNC_Press book currently titled GIRL SCOUTS OF AMERICA: RACE, FEMINISM, AND THE AMERICAN EMPIRE and ready to call it: one of the best works of nonfiction for 2025. There, I said it.
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Full color galleys for @katemasur & Liz Clarke’s breathtaking graphic history of Reconstruction, commissioned by @The_OAH and @NatlParkService, are here and just…WOW
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Beginning my 40th trip around the sun and have never felt this much gratitude for the people in my life. This one goes out to you, my Deborah, I love you so much ❤️.
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Advances are here! The anticipated 2nd edition of @AntheaButler’s White Evangelical Racism, w/ a new preface that looks at how the political influence of white evangelicals has intensified amid Trump’s 3rd run, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and backlash against racial equity.
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Quite possibly the greatest book pic I have ever taken? @BartElmore’s COUNTRY CAPITALISM has descended from the heavens to a bookstore near you. Hurry!
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I've gotten a few "follow me on IG instead of here" messages from pals & that's interesting to me. I quit IG over a year ago because it was super unhealthy for me -- made me depressed and anxious - & also terrible for my shopping habits, lol. There's no good social media site.
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"A superb corrective to the debate over America's gun problem and what to do about it. This is a fresh and timely history." —@DrKyleBurke on @drewmckevitt's GUN COUNTRY
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I'm sorry, but the old Sonya can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, 'cause she's eating her weight in pasteis de nada
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Sitting next to a couple w/ their newborn and they tried to give me a goody bag! Lord did I give the entire airplane an earful about how their baby is allowed to be on this flight and they are allowed to make noise and eat and do what babies do: cry. Might ask to hold the baby.
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It’s funny because it’s true (cc’ing all book publicists)
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Not ok after reading this, not ok with how these survivors are "the lucky ones," not ok with guns and mass shootings in this country, not ok with the punch in the gut reminder that Uvalde police waited 77 minutes before entering the school, just not ok
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What a review by @robgreeneII! “No work of intellectual history has offered more to think about when reconsidering An American Dilemma than @MaribelMorey1’s White Philanthropy
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BACK TO (GALLEY) PRINT! for @CurwoodA's Shirley Chisholm bio. pictured here is the last remaining ARC, in the wild, until our next batch arrives. Don't sleep on this one, y'all!
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As promised: this is Sonya Bonczek, reporting live, from the @UNC_Press holiday party after party 🎉 I’m here with my marketing colleagues @wirechairs and @brock_schnoke who are going to tell us about their top reads of 2022 📚
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An honor to attend @GilmoreGlenda’s presidential address at #2022SHA. A highlight of my year has been getting to work with her and getting to know her (to know her is to love her)❤️
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After five years of collaboration and friendship, an author (the GOAT) and her (always) publicist FINALLY meet IRL 🥰#OAH23
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If you are a @UNC_Press author at #2022SHA, please know that I will wrangle you into taking a photo because there is simply nothing better than a photo of an author holding their book.
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C'mon, how cute is this photo of @BartElmore at #ASEH? Nothing better than an author excited to see their book (in this case, ARC) at a conference 🥰 COUNTRY CAPITALISM drops May 2!
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The older I get, the more I appreciate vanilla ice cream. This isn't a metaphor for anything. Just saying that really good vanilla ice cream slaps and I didn't realize it until my late 30s.
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The first pre-pub review for A NEW HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH is in, and it's a 🌟! @KirkusReviews (online next week) says "the book’s contributors brilliantly integrate the contents of their separate chapters, each on a distinct era, into a taut, analytical narrative.".
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Good afternoon @TheSouthernSHA #2022SHA! @UNC_Press editor extraordinaire @AndrewJWinters joins me with an important book recommendation you won’t want to miss—don’t touch that dial 📺
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🔥🔥🔥🔥the conversation between powerhouses @tressiemcphd and @pwilliamsforson was 💥💥💥💥lucky to have been in the room where it happened @UNCSouth
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Feeling real fucked up this morning. No end in sight to the suffering and murder of Palestinians.
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#SBRL🎙️(Sonya Bonczek Reporting Live) I’m here with non-fitness fitness expert Ava Purkiss, whose brilliant book FIT CITIZENS - the first historical study of Black women's exercise - officially drops April 11. Don’t miss this interview!
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@annie_hartnett Then ink pooling and spilling off the desk is giving me heart palpitations but she is so cute and pure and you will laugh so hard so soon.
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@notcapnamerica And the corresponding audio “You’re big but some of these guys in here are wayyy bigger” 🫠🫠🫠.
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“A sobering and rigorous work of history, one with significant ramifications for the present…@llassabe’s account is a powerful corrective, a compelling narrative, and a frankly frightening parable.”—@ScottWStern for @jacobin . RESISTANCE FROM THE RIGHT pubs tomorrow!
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Should I attempt a "Sonya Bonczek reporting live" from the @UNC_Press holiday party tonight? Looking to interview colleagues who make the whole place ✨shimmer ✨.
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Have you met our new Assistant Editorial Director? Her name is Debbie Gershenowitz and SHE IS THE REAL DEAL! Congratulations, Debbie--you make logging into work everyday a joy!.
UNC Press is delighted to announce that effective October 1, Debbie Gershenowitz @DGershenowitz has been promoted into the new role of assistant editorial director. Congratulations Debbie! 🎉.
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My name is Sonya Bonczek. I’m your favorite book publicist’s favorite book publicist.
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Last night in Amelia Island 🏝️ back at the Falcon’s Nest, where my friends and I snuck into a private party on St Patrick’s Day 2007. I bumped into a tall guy and the rest is history.
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Taking a deep breath before posting a thread about all of the SP24 books I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT.
📚 Spring 2024 UNC Press frontlist catalog is here —featuring new books (all now available for preorder) by @EvanDaltonSmith @steep_smith @DrShardeDavis Robert Brunk @BrunkAuctions @chrisholaday @mfkantor @WaterPotential @DGMartinNC, and many more!
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These are galleys - uncorrected proofs - mostly for media, but I wasn't kidding about who wants one b/c we're doing it up for this big important book that will change the way we understand and study the south. Preorder the hardcover in all its glory here:
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I am from New England and all I've ever heard about is NE fall foliage but excuse me? Are we sure fall in NC doesn't rival? This is my neighborhood? I'm not even in the Blue Ridge Mountains??
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What a review of A NEW HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH by @ScottWStern 👏 cc: @pharvey61 @HstyMattersSyd @profblmkelley @marthasjones_ @nelsonhist @katemasur @HistoryCounts.
A new history cuts against stereotypes, to show a region constantly changing—and whose future is up for grabs. From @scottwstern:.
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Nothing better than a little reading on your front porch before the work day officially begins (and: galleys for @CurwoodA’s bio of Shirley Chisholm are HERE!)
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I can't tell you how refreshing it was to speak with @JessGrose and read her piece this morning after a week of 🌠wild🌠 comments that missed the bigger issues at hand.
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Truly love authors who just say "thank you!" when you bring them some good news about book coverage rather than using it as an opp to ask "and what about x or y?" I promise your publicist is on it. If you want to follow up, of course, just wait a beat! Let's enjoy the moment 🤩.
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Sneak peek of @UNC_Press’s brand new, barely hot off the press Fall/Winter 2023 catalog! These southern apples (from the gorgeous cover of a new book from @FoggyRidgeCider) have traveled with me from North Carolina to the big Apple for sales conference and media calls 🍎 📞 🗞️
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Advances from the printer of @paulmrenfro’s *The Life and Death of Ryan White* have arrived, and they look 💯
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My 5 year old has been begging for light up shoes for this school year. I had to say no. What if there's a shooter and his shoes give him away? Not "what if" anymore, but "when." . Happy first day of school in America. Praying for my colleagues and everyone on campus at UNC.
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For the next month, my personality is prepping for Lisbon & Porto (10 year wedding anniversary trip, without the kids, 7 nights, haven't been back to Europe in 10 years. pinch me!). 😍.
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It's that special time in book publishing; the in-between, right before our new Spring/Summer 2023 catalog goes live and sales conference circuit begins. Some pages are in, some aren't, but I'm happily drowning in PDFs & word docs of *very* good new books that I get to promote 🥲.
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🚨Breaking News🚨This just in: @UNC_Press is “the best,” according to book cover matching & award winning author Christina Greene. Her book FREE JOAN LITTLE explores the intersecting histories of Black women, mass incarceration, sexual violence, and social movements. Get it.
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D.A.R.E to say YES to Max Felker-Kantor’s (@mfkantor) fantastic forthcoming @UNC_Press book on policing and the war on drugs in schools. Don’t change that dial! 📻
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Big shout out to @hkyriakoudes, the backbone of UNC Press publicity and one of the most delightful and insightful colleagues around. Happy 1 year anniversary with the press - WE ADORE YOU! 🎉🍾👑.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged (by book publicists), that if you put up an out of office you WILL hear back from national media IMMEDIATELY. Works like a charm every time.
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