University Times

Beth Bosworth has been named the 2012 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Bosworth’s manuscript, “The Source of Life and Other Stories,” was selected by American essayist and critic Sven Birkerts from a field of nearly 300 entries.

The collection will be published this fall by the University of Pittsburgh Press, the prize’s sponsor.

Birkerts said, “The overall vision encompassed in ‘The Source of Life’ is aware of all the ills and grievances and worse that being human entails, but its spirit is nonetheless tolerant, and at key moments redemptive.”

Bosworth explained: “The characters in ‘The Source of Life’ do battle with their own worst selves as much as fate or circumstance.” She cited a few examples: A neurotic man stumbles into an encounter with his therapist and her armed ex-husbands; the editor of a struggling magazine faces a fatal choice; a woman risks poisoning her estranged son’s dog.

Bosworth also is the author of “A Burden of Earth and Other Stories” and the fantasy novel “Tunneling.”