AUC Press Welcomes Thomas Willshire as New Executive Director

The American University in Cairo Press is delighted to announce the appointment of Thomas Willshire as its new executive director, effective 1 September 2024, Willshire is based at the Cairo office.

Mr. Willshire brings over 30 years of academic and trade publishing experience, having worked most recently at Cambridge University Press, as well as Oxford University Press, Continuum International Publishing, Random House, and Harper Collins. He began his career in bookselling in Milwaukee and Chicago before joining Barnes & Noble’s buying team at their New York headquarters.

In an exclusive interview with Celeste Abourjeili from News@AUC, Willshire shares his vision: “I believe it’s crucial to amplify Arab voices in the West, and that’s a core mission at AUC Press as the leading publisher of Middle East studies and Egyptology. I also see the Press serving as an ambassador for the University.”

Celeste Abourjeili, News@AUC. #PeopleOfAUC

What is your vision as executive director of AUC’s publishing house?

I find it really important to bring more Arab voices to the West, and that’s a key part of what we do at AUC as the pre-eminent publisher of Middle East studies and Egyptology. I see the press as a kind of ambassador for the University too. I’ve worked with university presses before, and I want to continue that dynamic where the university is a valued partner. For instance, we are humanities-based as a publisher, but there are many other disciplines that AUC excels at in research and course offerings. I would love to expand our relationship with the University for AUC Press to be a bit of a reflection of what AUC has to offer in those disciplines and beyond.

I find it really important to bring more Arab voices to the West, and that’s a key part of what we do at AUC as the pre-eminent publisher of Middle East studies and Egyptology. I see the press as a kind of ambassador for the University too.

What are your priorities for AUC Press during this coming year?

I would like to raise the profile of AUC Press in North America and the United Kingdom. Since I primarily come from a sales and marketing background, I would really like to take it further with sales and new publishing areas. Environment and climate change come to mind because they’re very successful fields to publish in now for reasons we’re not happy about. Egypt, by definition, has been dealing with the climate over its long history by virtue of the Nile and the annual inundations, so there are many ways to approach environmental studies from an Egyptian perspective, and that can be from a political, historic or scientific base. There are lessons that can be learned from Egypt’s experience over the years as a climate-oriented location, and they are interdisciplinary too.

I also want to look at our distribution, not just here and in Western Europe, but in the Middle East itself because this is, for me, the new frontier. We do our own sales and distribution in Egypt, but our work in the rest of the world is through distribution agreements. I know North America and Western Europe pretty well as markets and academic markets, and I think we can expand our own distribution. My learning curve is right here, and so I want to focus on that a little bit more.

Your career has spanned book retail, trade publishing and, most recently, academic publishing. What excites you about academia?

I like ideas and being around ideas. Academic publishing serves many, many needs. Creating textbooks obviously serves students, but there is also a need for instructors to publish, and academic publishing fills that need too. We do trade books as well, which reach people who are well-educated but not necessarily specialists in any field, and that’s a very important market. Academic presses across the board, not just at AUC, are taking over areas that trade houses aren’t publishing in anymore; they’re not focusing as much on serious nonfiction nowadays. What’s important about academic publishing is that it adds to the conversation, and I want AUC to be part of the conversation.

What’s important about academic publishing is that it adds to the conversation, and I want AUC to be part of the conversation.

What has been your favorite role or duty throughout your career in bookselling and publishing?

I really enjoy working with sales teams because book sales teams are unlike any other kind. First of all, they’re people who love books, and they are often people with a wide range of experiences. So I like managing sales teams and interacting with authors as well. It’s a great joy to be able to meet the people who actually create the books and do the writing. I would also like to think of myself as the linchpin between the artists — our authors — and our distribution, and I enjoy the opportunity to meet people while distributing and serving the book — it’s the opportunity to connect with people every step of the way that I love the most.

This will be your first role in the Middle East. Why did you decide to take this role and make the move to Egypt?

I was very interested in continuing my publishing career, and my goal was to eventually direct a press. I was aware of the work AUC Press has done over the years, and I also like to travel! I didn’t travel much as a kid; I didn’t even go away from home for university. But since I moved to New York, I’ve done a lot of traveling. So for me, it was really an opportunity to grow and challenge myself, and to get out of my comfort level.

Favorite author: Charles Dickens, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway and Arthur Conan Doyle.  For obvious reasons, since accepting this role, I have returned to Naguib Mahfouz and am taking a deep dive into his entire legacy — published by the AUC!

Favorite books: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, The Periodic Table by Primo Levi and The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell. And the books that first got me into reading were science-fiction, as is the case for a lot of boys: Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury.

Favorite hobbies and activities: I am a reader and film buff; I’m curious to see what’s available in the Arab film scene and to learn more about Egyptian cinema’s “golden age.” AUC has books on that, too! I also sketch a bit, and I am a runner. In the course of about 10 years, I completed 14 full marathons. I hope to get back to that again. I would like to work on my language skills while I’m here. I can also bang out a song or too, badly, on the ukulele, a “skill” I picked up during the first year of COVID.

Favorite Egyptian site or monument: I’ve only seen the pyramids, but I would love to see Saqqara and monumental sites like Abu Simbel; its relocation for the Aswan Dam was one of the first papers I ever wrote, in middle school.

Accomplishment you’re most proud of: I am proud of my overall career in publishing because my father was a blue-collar person, and my parents didn’t have any higher education. I know my father was very proud of me. At this point, I can also say I’ve mentored some people, and I am very proud of that too.