Pittsburgh, PA – The University of Pittsburgh Press is thrilled to announce that Terrance Hayes, winner of the National Book Award and one of the leading voices in American poetry, will serve as judge of the 2026 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Submissions are now open for the first full-length book prize, with the winner receiving publication in the Pitt Poetry Series and a cash award of $5,000. Hayes, who has served as co-editor of the Pitt Poetry Series with Nancy Krygowski and Jeffrey McDaniel for four years, has also decided that the time is right to step back from…

Pittsburgh, PA — Bill Gaythwaite of Union, NJ, is the winner of the 2025 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, one of the nation’s most prestigious prizes for a collection of short stories. Gaythwaite’s collection, A Place in the World, was selected by Manuel Muñoz. A Place in the World will be published on October 7, 2025. “These are captivating stories that reveal how intertwined we really are with our past selves,” shares Manuel Muñoz, author of What You See in the Dark and The Consequences. “A fantastic collection about facing up to the ghosts of our mistakes and our fears, and…

Today for University Press Week we are featuring an interview with Will Masami Hammell, who recently joined the Press as Senior Acquisitions Editor to build new lists in Asian Studies and Africana Studies.  Below he discusses his personal and professional background as well as his editorial process. Q; What drew you to the University of Pittsburgh Press? A: I’ve admired the gumption of the Press since my earliest days as an editor. When I was starting out in acquisitions at Temple University Press, I lost my first competitive project to the Pitt Latin American Series, and I remember my less-than-mature…

Joy Priest is the author of Horsepower, winner of the 2019 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in ESPN, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, The Rumpus, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Best New Poets 2014, 2016, and 2019, among others. She is the recipient of support from the Fine Arts Work Center, The Frost Place, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Priest has facilitated poetry workshops with incarcerated juvenile and adult women, and has taught writing, comedy, and African American Arts & Culture at the university level. She received her MFA in poetry with a certificate…

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…