Joanna Higgins

The worthy Irish name Higgins, taken in marriage, masks Joanna Higgins' background as a fourth-generation Polish-American. She grew up in a small northern Michigan town on Lake Huron--Alpena--where Polish was regularly spoken and relatives gathered to talk and tell stories long into the evenings. A love of reading morphed into an early love of writing. In college she majored in English and eventually went on to earn a Ph.D. and teach in several colleges and universities. But her love of writing persisted, and in time she had the great good fortune to study with the esteemed author of Grendel and The Sunlight Dialogues, among other fine books--John Gardner. Since then her short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories and American Fiction and have earned awards and recognition. She received a National Endowment of the Arts Award, and in 2007 her first novel, A Soldier's Book, originally published by The Permanent Press and as a trade paperback by Harcourt Brace, was a Finalist for the Michael Shaara Award for Fiction. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children and spends much time hiking and--writing.