Joan Silber is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

and short story writer. She won the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the 2018

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

for her novel ''Improvement''.

Biography

Joan Silber was born in 1945. She grew up in

Millburn, New Jersey Millburn is a suburban township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the township's population was 20,149, reflecting an increase of 384 (+1.9%) from the 19,765 counted in the 2000 Census, which had ...

. She graduated from

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly ...

and obtained an M.A. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. She taught at NYU and now teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City. Silber's work has been selected for The O. Henry Prize Stories six times—in 2003, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015, and 2021. It also appeared in the ''Best American Short Stories 2015'', and won The Pushcart Prize. Her writing has appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

,'' ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...

,'' ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

, Tin House, Epoch, The Southern Review, Agni, The Colorado Review,'' and other publications.

Published work

Novels * ''Secrets of Happiness'' (2021) * ''Improvement'' (2017) * ''The Size of the World'' (

W.W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton An ...

, 2008) * ''Lucky Us'' (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001) * ''In the City'' (Viking, 1987) * ''Household Words'' (Penguin Books, 1980) Short Story Collections * ''Fools'' (W.W. Norton, 2013) * ''Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories'' (W.W. Norton, 2004) * ''In My Other Life'' (

Sarabande Books Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press who ...

, 2000) Nonfiction * ''The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes'' (Graywolf Press, 2009)

Honors and awards

* 2018

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

for ''Improvement'' * 2018 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story * 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction winner for ''Improvement'' * 2014

, finalist for ''Fools'' * 2008 The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, finalist for ''The Size of the World'' * 2004

Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

, finalist for ''Ideas of Heaven'' * 2004

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

, finalist for ''Ideas of Heaven'' * 1981

Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingw ...

winner for ''Household Words'' She has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the Arts > Forty Years of Supporting American Writers > Past Fellowship Recipients
and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

References

External links

Joan Silber Biography on Ploughshares

Interview: Barnes and Noble, Meet the Writers: Joan Silber

* ttp://www.believermag.com/issues/200412/?read=interview_silber Interview: ''The Believer'' > December 2004/January 2005 > Interview with Joan Silber {{DEFAULTSORT:Silber, Joan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American women writers American women academics American women novelists Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners National Endowment for the Arts Fellows New York University alumni The New Yorker people Novelists from New Jersey Novelists from New York (state) PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners People from Millburn, New Jersey Sarah Lawrence College alumni Sarah Lawrence College faculty