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Author: Patricia Grace King

The author discusses her new collection of short stories, "Those Who Vanish," winner of the 2026 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, in conversation with Laura Spence-Ash.

About the Book (from the publisher): 

To disappear meant to die. In those days, in that place, almost everyone knew. With sentences that cut clean to the bone and wrench the heart, Patricia Grace King invites us to comprehend the traumas of wartime and the legacies they create. As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords, we find ourselves still urgently needing to understand the wars the United States has fomented abroad.

Offering readers a direct window into the Guatemalan internal armed conflict (1960–1996), the stories in "Those Who Vanish" wrestle with the question of individual responsibility in the face of global forces, portraying with sensitivity American citizens in Guatemala during the conflict and the later experience of Guatemalan expats in America. We see how trauma ripples: through generations of a family, across oceans and borders, and even into the very fabric of our relationships.

Winner of the 2026 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, "Those Who Vanish" is a collection we can’t afford not to read. Through stories that explore faith, violence, survival, and the resilience of the human heart, King insists we think critically about foreign wars and the roles we might play in them. Likewise, she asks us to consider the personal wars we wage against each other, and our own selves, as we decide who we are and what we’re willing to fight for.

About the Author: 

Patricia Grace King grew up in North Carolina and has since lived in Spain, Guatemala, and the United Kingdom, where she resides. Her short fiction 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. A former Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, she has received additional support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the British Library. "Those Who Vanish" is her first book.

About the Moderator: 

Laura Spence-Ash’s debut novel, "Beyond That, the Sea", was published by Celadon Books in March 2023. The novel garnered praise from Meg Wolitzer, Ann Napolitano, and Claire Messud, among others.  Laura was named one of the 10 Writers to Watch in Spring 2023 by Publishers Weekly. The novel was chosen as a GMA Buzz Pick, an Indie Next Pick for April 2023, and it received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Laura’s short fiction has appeared in One Story, New England Review, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. She was the founding editor of CRAFT, an online literary journal, and she has taught for Rutgers University, the Princeton Adult School, and One Story. She has received fellowships and support from MacDowell, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Rutgers-Newark, where she received the Presidential Fellowship, and she lives in New Jersey.

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