University Times

Awards seem to be a major item of business at the University Press these days.

Katherine Vaz, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Davis, has won the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature for her short story collection "Fado & Other Stories. (See story page 5.) Helen Conkling, a Buffalo, N.Y., poet, has been named the winner of the Press's 1997 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her work "Red Peony Night." Meanwhile, "Post-Rapture Diner" by Dorothy Barresi, a part of the Press's Pitt Poetry Series, has won an American Book Award, and two other books in the poetry series have been named as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards.

The Starrett Poetry Prize was launched in 1981 to honor former University Press director Agnes Starrett. Any poet who has not published a full-length manuscript is eligible for the prize, which includes a $3,000 cash award and publication as part of the Pitt Poetry Series.

In "Red Peony Night," Conkling draws on her experiences as a teacher and professional musician to write about people and her encounters with urban life. Her work has appeared in Ohio Review, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner and The Hudson Review.

Barresi's American Book Award winner, "Post-Rapture Diner," is about finding hope, and confronting and overcoming cynicism through a spirituality grounded in the world.

The American Book Awards are administered by the Before Columbus Foundation, a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multi-cultural literature. Awards are given without restriction or bias to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or genre.

Pitt's Lambda Literary Prize finalists are "All-American Girl" by Robin Becker and "Angel Interrupted" by Reginald Shepherd. Lambda Book Report sponsors the awards under the aegis of the Lambda Literary Foundation to recognize works by gay and lesbian writers.

"All-American Girl" is a finalist in the Lesbian Poetry category. Ploughshares magazine said its "often devastating poems contend with crushing loss, the convolutions of sexuality and family politics, the struggle to accept the self." Becker is an associate professor of English at Penn State. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. Her earlier books include "Backtalk" and "Giacometti's Dog." "Angel Interrupted" is a finalist in the Gay Men's Poetry category. Booklist described the book's subject as "the redeeming power of love, especially the transgressive lust that brings the body in conflict with social proscriptions." Shepherd teaches at Northern Illinois University. His poems have been included in the 1995 and 1996 editions of "Best American Poetry." He was the recipient of a 1995 National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship.

Winners of the Lambda Literary Awards will be announced on May 30.

The Pitt Poetry Series was founded in 1968 to publish contemporary American poetry. It has been edited by Ed Ochester, a faculty member in the English department, since 1978 and publishes about seven volumes annually.

–Mike Sajna