Patricia Grace King, winner of the 2026 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, will give a talk about her craft on Sept. 24 titled, “The Pleasures and Dangers of Lyrical Language in Fiction.”

The Drue Heinz Prize is awarded annually by the University of Pittsburgh Press for a collection of short fiction. King’s talk, at 11 a.m. Sept. 24 in 501 Cathedral of Learning, is sponsored by the Pitt Press and the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writer Series. 

King, of Durham, England, also has won the Miami University Novella Prize, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, and the Florida Review’s Leiby Prize. Other stories have been published by Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Narrative and Nimrod.

Her first collection, “Those Who Vanish,” will be published by the Pitt Press this month. The award also includes a cash prize of $15,000 and support in the international promotion of the book. 

King also will give a reading with Sherrie Flick at 7 p.m. Sept. 23 at the White Whale Bookstore 4754 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield.