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 – The University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce that Deborah Orgel Hudson has been named Marketing and Sales Director. Deborah Orgel Hudson brings over sixteen years of experience at Rowman & Littlefield, most recently as Director of Strategic Engagement. She has deep, hands-on experience in every aspect of book marketing, and has managed people, programs, and budgets in a variety of contexts. Her experience with trade and academic nonfiction publishing and working with booksellers, librarians, academics, and consumers will add to the Press’s existing 89-year legacy. Press Director Peter Kracht shares, “Deborah’s energy, warmth, sense of…

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…

The Selected Shepherd has been selected as one of “The Best Poetry Books of 2024” by The New York Times. “Edited by Jericho Brown, this is a rich introduction to Shepherd’s work, which is elegant, erudite and wry, every poem an argument for language as a way of life.” Read the full New York Times article here.              

Elisa Gabbert’s “On Poetry” column features a wonderful look at cloud imagery in poetry and the poems of Reginald Shepherd are featured, along with the cover of The Selected Shepherd. “Reginald Shepherd is also a cloud-spotter. Almost every poem in THE SELECTED SHEPHERD (University of Pittsburgh Press, $30) mentions clouds, the way almost every painting in a landscape gallery mentions clouds. (There are paintings of clouds, and those that only mention them in passing.) Shepherd isn’t quite writing “nature poems,” as we might say of Wright. But no poem about the world escapes nature, and clouds often enter as pure image:…