Kate Wisel has won the 2019 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for a manuscript of short stories for Driving in Cars with Homeless Men, which will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press October 1. The award also includes a cash prize of $15,000.
Judge Min Jin Lee commented: "You can hear the crackle of heat and the roar of a powerful fire burning through these pages. Young angry women, brokenhearted mothers, and men who are lost to themselves and others struggle in the world of Driving in Cars with Homeless Men. Close to the edge, fearful of love yet dying of longing, [Wisel's characters] are vital and tender. Their stories are incandescent."
Wisel's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, New Ohio Review, Tin House online, Redivider (as winner of the Beacon Street prize), and on the Boston subway as winner of the Poetry on the T contest. She is a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
---
Adam Kay's This Is Going to Hurt was named the Specsavers Book of the Year after a popular vote in the U.K. The title had previously garnered three Specsavers National Book Awards wins for new writer of the year, popular nonfiction book and the Zoe Ball Book Club Choice.
Kay called the success of his "love letter" to the National Health Service a testament to the entire nation's affection for the service, the Bookseller reported. "I want to share the award with the million and half people who keep the NHS going every single day, including when the rest of us are enjoying Christmas at home," he said.
Other Specsavers National Book category winners who were eligible for book of the year were:
Popular fiction: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Crime/thriller: Snap by Belinda Bauer
Autobiography/biography: Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Food & drink: Ottolenghi Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi
Children's: Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different by Ben Brooks, illustrated by Quinton Winter
YA: Feminists Don't Wear Pink, curated by Scarlett Curtis
Audiobook: The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, read by Benedict Cumberbatch
International author: Sally Rooney, Normal People
U.K. author: Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust Vol. 1: La Belle Sauvage