Drue Heinz Winner Joanna Pearson

Reading and discussion with 2020 Drue Heinz Winner, Joanna Pearson. Joanna will read from her award-winning collection Now You Know it All and be joined in conversation by Clare Beams (The Illness Lesson)

Now You Know It All: Winner of the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, selected by Edward P. Jones

Poised on the precipice of mystery and longing, each character in Now You Know It All also hovers on the brink of discovery—and decision. Set in small-town North Carolina, or featuring eager Southerners venturing afar, these stories capture the crucial moment of irrevocable change. With a sharp eye for rendering inner life, Joanna Pearson has a knack for creating both compassion and a looming sense of threat. Her stories peel back the layers of the narratives we tell ourselves in an attempt to understand the world, revealing that the ghosts haunting us are often the very shadows that we cast.

“Subtle and moving . . . Pearson’s stories glide through their alarming moments with a precision hard to look away from. This will transfix and unsettle.”