Home - About the Book - About the Author - Reviews - For Book Groups - Contact

Joan Leegant has won numerous prizes for her story collection, AN HOUR IN
PARADISE (W.W. Norton), including the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for
the best book of Jewish-American fiction, and the L.L. Winship/PEN New
England Award for the best book by a New England author. AN HOUR IN PARADISE
was also a Fall 2003 Selection for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New
Writers Program.

Born in Westbury, New York, Joan attended Radcliffe College, Boston University
Law School, and the Vermont College MFA Program. After practicing law for several
years, she went to Jerusalem for what was to be a six month stay. She remained
there for nearly three years, becoming absorbed by the varieties of Jewish experience
that later made their way into her fiction. She is a recipient of an artist grant from the
Massachusetts Cultural Council and several fellowships from the MacDowell Colony.
She teaches writing at Harvard University and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.