University Times

Chinese-American poet Shao Wei is the 22nd winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, which is awarded by the University of Pittsburgh Press for an outstanding first book of poetry.

Her manuscript, "Pulling a Dragon's Teeth" was selected from more than 1,000 entries and will be published by the Press in fall 2003.

Established in 1981, the Starrett prize is named for the Press's first director. The prize carries a $5,000 award.

Shao Wei describes "Pulling a Dragon's Teeth" as a poetry memoir. Her first collection in English, the verses recount a girl's lonely and fearful childhood in a small mountainous city in China. The poems trace a girl's journey into womanhood, a journey that includes her new life in the United States.

Raised in China, Shao Wei came to the U.S. in 1996. She earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University. Her other awards include a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, and a Fredrica Clifton fellowship at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.