Kate Wisel, a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the 2019 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which includes publication of her book of short stories, “Driving in Cars with Homeless Men,” by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Her manuscript was selected by National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee from a field of more than 530 entries.

The Heinz award — created in 1981 by Drue Heinz to honor books of short stories — also includes a cash prize of $15,000.

Wisel, a native of Boston, said her collection is “a love letter to women moving through violence. These linked stories are set in the streets and the bars, the old homes, the tiny apartments, and the landscape of a working-class Boston. They are the collective story of women whose lives careen back into the past, to the places where pain lurks and haunts. With riotous energy and rage, they run towards the future in the hopes of untangling themselves from failure to succeed and fail again.”

“Driving in Cars with Homeless Men” will be available on Oct. 1.

Book events

Scott Stern discusses “The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison ‘Promiscuous’ Women” (Beacon Press, 2018)

5-6:30 p.m. Jan. 10, G23 Graduate School of Public Health

Stern, a 2011 graduate of Pittsburgh Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill, focuses on the twisted legacies of “The American Plan” and Thomas Parran. He spent six years researching the systematic imprisonment of women in America under the guise of safeguarding public health, culminating in his book. Stern will discuss his research and its ties to the mixed legacy of Pitt Public Health’s founding dean, Thomas Parran. A book signing will follow. The lecture is part of the School of Public Health’s Grand Rounds series.

Book launch for “The Islamic State in Britain: Radicalization and Resilience in an Activist Network,” by Michael Kenney, associate professor in the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs

1:30-3 p.m. Jan. 17, Twentieth Century Club, 2nd Floor, 4201 Bigelow Blvd.

In his work, Kenney draws on extensive field research with activists on the streets of London to provide the first ethnographic study of a European network implicated in terrorist attacks and sending fighters to the Islamic State.

The Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies will host a panel discussion with Kenney, Alexander Montgomery, associate professor of political science at Reed College in Portland, Ore.,  and Julie Chernov Hwang, associate professor of political science and international relations at Goucher College in Baltimore.

RSVPs to RidgwayCenter@pitt.edu are appreciated but not required. 

“Reproductive Health, Reproductive Justice, and Incarceration in the U.S.,” lecture by Dr. Carolyn Sufrin of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, author of “Jailcare: Finding the Safety Net for Women Behind Bars”

7:15-8:15 a.m. Jan. 15, Auditorium Magee Women’s Hospital, 300 Halket St.

This talk will describe reproductive health issues facing one of the most marginalized groups of patients in the U.S., incarcerated women. Sufrin will discuss the reproductive health needs and reproductive justice issues of incarcerated women, strategies for addressing them, and why all women’s health care providers should be concerned about this group of women. Co-sponsored by the Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies Program and the Center for Bioethics & Health Law.

New books, journals and more

“Shakespeare and Directing in Practice” (Macmillan International, 2018), by Kevin Ewert, professor of theater at Pitt­–Bradford

The book, the fifth in the “Shakespeare in Practice” series, introduces students to current practices of directing Shakespeare. The book draws on Ewert’s experiences watching Shakespeare productions in Canada, studying Shakespeare in England, directing professionally for many years in Pittsburgh and in Durham, N.C., and working with his theater students at Pitt–Bradford. Ewert has taught at Pitt-Bradford since 1999, after earning his doctorate in Shakespeare Studies at The Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

“Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring and Managing Brand Equity” (Pearson, 2020), co-authored by Vanitha Swaminathan, professor of marketing, Katz Graduate School of Business

This book is a comprehensive look at the modern business practice of branding and management of brands. Consumers are surrounded by brands such as Apple, Amazon and Coca-Cola and brands have become an integral part of the business landscape. This fifth edition, co-authored by Professor Kevin Lane Keller of Dartmouth College, summarizes best practices in brand management and accounts for the sweeping changes taking place in the business landscape due to the growth of digital marketing.