Drue Heinz Prize Winner to Give Evening Reading at Pitt Nov. 3

PITTSBURGH—Darrell Spencer, recipient of the 2004 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, will give an evening reading along with prize judge Jane McCafferty, the 1992 Drue Heinz winner, at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 3 in the University of Pittsburgh William Pitt Union Ballroom, 3959 Fifth Ave., Oakland. This event is free and open to the public.

Author of the Drue Heinz Prize-winning Bring Your Legs with You (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), Spencer also won the 1998 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction for his short story collection CAUTION: Men in Trees (University of Georgia Press, 2000). Spencer's other books include A Woman Packing a Pistol (Dragon Gate Press, 1987) and Our Secret's Out (University of Missouri Press, 1993). His short stories have appeared in myriad publications including the American Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Quarterly West, and The Gettysburg Review. He is a professor of creative writing at Ohio University.

McCafferty, the 1992 Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner for Director of the World and Other Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), is an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University. She also was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the 1998 Pushcart Prize. Her short stories have been in Glimmer Train, Story, Witness, and other publications.

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, Pitt's Center for Latin American Studies, University Center for International Studies, The Book Center, and the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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10/28/04/tmw