The longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, United States and Canada, has been selected. The prize awards a total of $35,000 and honors the "commitment of small presses to exceptional works of literary merit."
A jury of independent booksellers and small press enthusiasts chose the titles on the longlist. The jury included: Lori Feathers (Interabang Books, Dallas, Tex.), Ryan Farrell (Vollmannia, Washington, D.C.), Sarah Kalsbeek (Eyes on Indie, Chicago, Ill.), Ian McCord (Rec Room Books, Athens, Ga.), and Spencer Ruchti (Third Place Books, Seattle, Wash.).
There will be a virtual party celebrating the longlist, featuring publishers, authors, and translators, at 6 p.m. Central on Wednesday, February 18; anyone can join for free on Zoom. The shortlist of five titles will be announced on February 24, with the winner announced on March 10.
Of the $35,000 prize, $2,000 will go to each press with a longlisted title while an additional $3,000 will go to each of the five shortlisted titles. The $3,000 will be split equally between publisher and author, or publisher, author, and translator.
The 10 titles on the longlist:
Dreaming of Dead People by Rosalind Belben (And Other Stories)
Little Lazarus by Michael Bible (CLASH Books)
The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, trans. by David McKay (New Vessel Press)
On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, trans. by Padma Viswanathan (Charco Press)
Little World by Josephine Rowe (Transit Books)
Iris and the Dead by Miranda Schreiber (Book*hug Press)
Small Scale Sinners by Mahreen Sohail (A Public Space Books)
The Endless Week by Laura Vazquez, trans. by Alex Niemi (Dorothy, a publishing project)
Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers (Hub City Press)
Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation by Sarah Yahm (Dzanc Books)
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Patricia Grace King has won the 2026 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her short story collection Those Who Vanish. She receives $15,000, publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press (in September), and support in the international promotion of the book. The award is open to authors who have published a book-length collection of fiction or at least three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals.
Organizers wrote: "Set in Guatemala during its decades-long civil conflict, Those Who Vanish follows the stories of Guatemalan citizens and North American expats brought into contact by war. Across eight stories, martyrs and missionaries, guerrillas and gringos are thrown together amid political violence. A peace worker shelters a rebel fighter. An exile returns to confront the legacy of her parents' murders. The Virgin Mary begins appearing above an elderly woman's stove. Set in a world of daily disappearances, the collection addresses a vital question: when everything is snatched away, what remains of lives, of memory, of faith?"
Quan Barry, author of The Unveiling and the person who chose the winner, commented, "The stories in Patricia Grace King's ravishing Those Who Vanish chronicle the consequences of inhabiting spaces both physical and psychic where one doesn't naturally belong. In stories ranging from conflict-ravaged Guatemala to the American Midwest and beyond, King's unrelenting exploration of our need to survive while retaining our humanity propels these narratives into surprising and heart-breaking terrain. As one character poignantly asks of another, 'The real question is, do you want to be found?' Those Who Vanish doesn't present us with easy answers but masterfully interrogates what it means to be lost and the often blinding nature of self-discovery."