Pittsburgh, PA – The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Nate Marshall: Asa Drake, Maybe the Body Bobby Elliott, The Same Man Luke Patterson, Medic Alafia Sessions, Nine Drops of Turpentine Rob Shapiro, Human Nature The winner will be announced on December 11, 2024. Established in 1981, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize is administered by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Named in honor of Agnes Lynch Starrett, the Press’s first director, the prize is awarded for a first full-length book…

The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Shara McCallum: How We Keep Each Other Company by Talia Bloch The Living Sign by Colby Cotton What God in the Kingdom of Bastards by Brian Gyamfi Querida by Nathan Osorio The winner will be announced on December 18, 2023. Established in 1981, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, named in honor of the Press’s first director, is awarded for a first full-length book of poems. The prize carries a cash award of $5,000…

Anuradha Bhowmik of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the 2021 winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her collection Brown Girl Chromatography, selected by new Starrett Poetry Prize judge and award-winning poet Aaron Smith. Bhowmik, a Bangladeshi-American poet and writer from South Jersey, will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Pitt Poetry Series this fall, on sale September 2022. “Brown Girl Chromatography is pure fire, a slow burn to the center of desire,” said Smith. “This is a book of longing, of brokenness, of makeup (‘my second art, the perfect counterpart to my alter ego’), of…

Caroline Kim of Walnut Creek, California is the 2020 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for a book of short stories. Kim’s The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories was selected by award-winning author Alexander Chee. The University of Pittsburgh Press will publish Kim’s collection this fall. “The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories is an extraordinary collection, and the title story alone is an astonishing feat, a fictional imagining of a haunting episode at court in medieval Korea, the problem of a prince who tries to murder his way…

Kate Wisel of Monona, Wisconsin, is the 2019 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for a book of short stories. Her manuscript Driving in Cars with Homeless Men was selected by National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee from a field of over 530 entries. Driving in Cars with Homeless Men will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press later this year. “You can hear the crackle of heat and the roar of a powerful fire burning through these pages,” said Lee. “Young angry women, brokenhearted mothers, and men who are…