Ann Harleman


Ann Harleman is an American novelist, scholar, and professor.

Life and career

Harleman was born in Ohio. When she was four years old, her family moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where her father worked for Bethlehem Steel. As a child, she wrote mystery stories in the style of the Nancy Drew novels.
Aiming for a career in academia, she earned the B.A. degree at Rutgers University. In 1972, she became the first woman to earn the doctorate in linguistics at Princeton, and taught linguistics at the University of Washington. In 1976, she took part in a six-month exchange program in Russia.
After she moved to Rhode Island in 1983, she became a visiting scholar at Brown's American Civilization department and later a lecturer at the Rhode [Island School of Design].
In 1988 she earned the M.F.A. in creative writing at Brown University and began to write short stories, submitting some annually for the Iowa Short Fiction contest. In 1994, her collection of short stories, Happiness, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award.

Personal life

Harleman married folklore scholar Bruce Rosenberg in 1981. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1990 and died in 2010.

Works

Harleman is the author of the story collections Thoreau’s Laundry and Happiness, and the novels The Year She Disappeared and Bitter Lake.
  • The Cost of Anything, 1988
  • Mute Phone Calls, by Ruth Zernova, 1991
  • Happiness: Stories, 1994
  • Bitter Lake: A Novel, 1996
  • Thoreau’s Laundry: Stories, 2007
  • The Year She Disappeared: A Novel, 2008

    Non-fiction

  • Graphic Representation of Models in Linguistic Theory, 1976
  • Ian Fleming: A Critical Biography, 1989

    Articles

  • "Kenning and Riddle in Old English." Papers on Language and Literature, vol. 15, issue 2 : 115–136
  • "The Solution to Old English Riddle 4." Studia Philologica, vol. 78
  • "The Role of Narrative Structure in the Transmission of Ideas", in Textual Dynamics of the Professions, 1991

    Honors and awards

Harleman has received numerous awards including the Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the Berlin Prize in Literature, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and the O. Henry Award.