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News
Celebrated Cork writer and UCC doctoral candidate William Wall the first European to win Drue Heinz Literary Prize
24 Oct 2017

Prestigious prize awarded by the University of Pittsburgh Press for short-story collection The Islands
Cork novelist, poet and short fiction writer William Wall has recently returned from the USA where he collected the 2017 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for his collection,
The Islands. A UCC graduate, William is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate in Creative Writing in the School of English.
‘Pittsburgh was great - they take good care of you there. As part of the event I gave several readings, including one with David Gates, whose novel
Jernigan I love, and I had the pleasure of introducing Native American writer Sherman Alexie at an event in his honour. He didn’t pull his punches and the atmosphere in the hall was electric. Along the way I spoke to classes at University of Pittsburgh, Chatham University and Fordham in New York. Reading at Pittsburgh’s City Of Asylum was a highlight - a great audience, a beautiful venue and a good cause.'
The annual award for a collection of short fiction is sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press and offers publication and a prize fund of $15,000. William is the first European writer to win the award. He has previously won the Virginia Faulkner Award, the Sean O’Faoláin Prize and the Patrick Kavanagh Award and been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
His winning collection ’The Islands’ is on sale from University of Pittsburgh Press, Amazon etc. This autumn he has also published a new collection of poetry,
The Yellow House, and his next novel (
Suzy Suzy) will be published in February 2018 by New Island (Dublin) and Head of Zeus (London).
For more information, see
http://www.williamwall.net/