Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series to Host Drue Heinz Prize Winner

PITTSBURGH—Novelist Suzanne Greenberg, winner of the 2003 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and award-winning author Rick Moody, prize judge, will give a free reading as part of the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program's Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125, in Oakland.

Greenberg's manuscript, Speed-Walk and Other Stories, was selected by Moody from nearly 300 entries and will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press this fall.

"I am honored and amazed to win the Drue Heinz Literature Prize," said Greenberg, who teaches English at California State University in Long Beach. "Winning this award has validated for me years of work as a short story writer. While my stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, I'm thrilled finally to have a collection published, and published by such a wonderful press."

Greenberg is also the coauthor of Everyday Creative Writing: Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink (McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books, 2000), which is now in its second edition. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including the Mississippi Review, West Branch, and The Washington Post Magazine. Recipient of Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, she received the Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Maryland.

Moody has been acclaimed for his short stories that deal with such topics as personal and family relationships, sexuality, mortality, and adolescence. Moody has won a Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award, an Addison Metcalf Award, an Aga Khan Prize, and a Guffenheim Fellowship.

Established in 1980 and endowed by the Drue Heinz Trust in 1995, the Drue Heinz Literature Prize is administered by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The prize recognizes and supports writers of short fiction, making their work available to readers throughout the world. It is awarded to an author who has published a book-length collection of fiction or at least three short stories or novellas. Manuscripts are judged anonymously by nationally known writers.

The prize carries a cash award of $15,000.

The Contemporary Writers Series is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place, The Book Center, Pitt's Film Studies Program and Composition Program, and the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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