Ariel Horn Levenson is an American novelist and teacher. She is known for turning her job-finding difficulties as a new college graduate into a humorous novel: Help Wanted, Desperately.
Biography Horn grew up in the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey, where she attended Millburn High School.Harris, Patricia. "First job hunt leads to first novel", The Item of Millburn and Short Hills, October 21, 2004. Accessed May 27, 2018. "Author Ariel Horn, who grew up in the township and graduated from college two years ago, has fond memories of her formative days at Millburn High School." She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a columnist for The Daily Pennsylvanian. She studied for a Master of Arts degree in English at New York University.The New York Times, July 6, 2003. Weddings/Celebrations; Ariel Horn, Donny Levenson Horn has taught English at the Dalton School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, and at a public charter school in upper Manhattan. Horn's sister, Dara Horn is also a novelist.Jersey Footlights, Michelle Falkenstein, The New York Times, February 12, 2006
Horn has been a resident of Livingston, New Jersey.Klein, Julia M. "Horn of Plenty: Short Hills Writer Dara Horn Explores Jewish Culture; A Jewish scholar and a Harvard PhD., novelist Dara Horn is also a happy suburban mom.", New Jersey Monthly, August 14, 2013. Accessed May 27, 2018. "Younger sister Ariel, 33, an English teacher and novelist, resides in nearby Livingston with her husband and two children."
Help Wanted, Desperately In the spring of 2002 Horn was in her senior year at the University of Pennsylvania and was being interviewed for an entry-level job with a New York management consulting firm.
Help Wanted, Desperately, follows a thinly fictionalized version of Horn, Alexa Hoffman, through "a roller coaster ride of job interviews" as a college senior. Her plan is to avoid going home to Short Hills, New Jersey after graduation at any cost. Her Plan B if all else fails is to go teach English on the Pacific island of Majuro. The novel "hilariously chronicle(s)" a series of job interviews that include earthworm breeder, Broadway actress, and deodorant sniffer. The novel was published by HarperCollins in 2004. Booklist wrote that Horn used her "own job-interviewing experiences for comic effect."
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