About Ann Harleman
Born 1945. Ann Harleman is an American novelist and linguist.
Ann Harleman is an American novelist, scholar, and professor.
Early life and education 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.
In 1988 she earned a M.F.A. in creative writing at Brown University
Career Academia After earning her PhD, Harleman taught linguistics at the University of Washington. In 1976, she took part in a six-month exchange program in Russia.
Writing She 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. Raymond Carver Prize, 1986 Chris O'Malley Fiction Prize, 1987 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, 1987 NEH Fellow, Institute for Literary Translation, 1988 Rockefeller Foundation Artist’s Fellow, 1989 Judith Siegel Pearson Award, 1991 PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, 1991 Iowa Short Fiction Award, 1993 Berlin Prize in Literature, 2000 Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Prize, 2002 O. Henry Award, 2003 Goodheart Prize for Fiction, 2004 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, 2004
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 (thesis submitted at Brown University) Mute Phone Calls, by Ruth Zernova (translated from Russian), 1991 Happiness: Stories, 1994 (reprinted 2008) 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 (as Ann Harleman Stewart) Ian Fleming: A Critical Biography, 1989 (co-authored with Bruce A. Rosenberg)
Articles "Kenning and Riddle in Old English." Papers on Language and Literature, vol. 15, issue 2 (spring 1979): 115–136 "The Solution to Old English Riddle 4." Studia Philologica, vol. 78 (1981) "The Role of Narrative Structure in the Transmission of Ideas", in Textual Dynamics of the Professions, 1991
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Important facts
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Frequently asked questions
Who is Ann Harleman?
American fiction writer and linguistics scholar
When was Ann Harleman born?
Ann Harleman was born on 28 October 1945.
What is Ann Harleman's occupation?
Ann Harleman is a novelist and linguist.
What nationality is Ann Harleman?
Ann Harleman is American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Ann Harleman. https://biography.guide/ann-harleman/
MLA: "Ann Harleman." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/ann-harleman/.
Chicago: "Ann Harleman." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/ann-harleman/.
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