Drue Heinz Literature Prize
The Drue Heinz Literature Prize recognizes and supports writers of literary short fiction and makes their work available to readers around the world. The Prize is open to authors who have published at least three short stories or novellas, or one book-length collection of fiction, or a novel.
Manuscripts are judged anonymously by internationally known writers. Past judges have included Ann Patchett, Richard Russo, Robert Penn Warren, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, Michael Chabon, Rick Moody, Joan Didion, Manuel Muñoz, Deesha Philyaw, and Quan Barry.
Prize winners receive a cash prize of $25,000, publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press, and support in the worldwide promotion of their book.
Read our Feb. 2026 press release on changes to the prize here.
2026 DRUE HEINZ LITERATURE PRIZE
Selected by Quan Barry
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Those Who Vanish
The stories in Patricia Grace King’s ravishing Those Who Vanish chronicle the consequences of inhabiting spaces both physical and psychic where one doesn’t naturally belong. In stories ranging from conflict-ravaged Guatemala to the American Midwest and beyond, King’s unrelenting exploration of our need to survive while retaining our humanity propels these narratives into surprising and heart-breaking terrain. As one character poignantly asks of another, ‘The real question is, do you want to be found?’ Those Who Vanish doesn’t present us with easy answers but masterfully interrogates what it means to be lost and the often-blinding nature of self-discovery.
