Joan Silber (born 1945) is an American novelist and short story writer. She won the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her novel Improvement.
Biography
Joan Silber was born in 1945. She grew up in Millburn, New Jersey. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and obtained an M.A. from New York University. 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, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, Tin House, Epoch, The Southern Review, Agni, The Colorado Review, and other publications.The National Book Foundation > 2004 National Book Award Finalists > Joan Silber Biography
Bibliography
Novels Mercy (2025) Secrets of Happiness (2021) Improvement (2017) The Size of the World (W.W. Norton, 2008) Lucky Us (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001) In the City (Viking, 1987) Household Words (Penguin Books, 1980)
Short fiction Collections Fools (W.W. Norton, 2013) Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories (W.W. Norton, 2004) In My Other Life (Sarabande Books, 2000)
Nonfiction The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes (Graywolf Press, 2009)
Honors and awards
2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Improvement 2018 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction winner for Improvement 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, finalist for Fools 2008 The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, finalist for The Size of the World 2004 Story Prize, finalist for Ideas of Heaven 2004 National Book Award, finalist for Ideas of Heaven 1981 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winner for Household Words
She has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation,John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation > Current Fellows > Past Recipients > Joan Silber 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 The National Book Foundation > 2004 National Book Award Finalists > Joan Silber Biography Interview: The Believer > December 2004/January 2005 > Interview with Joan Silber