Sharon Solwitz

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, 1991

Sharon Solwitz is the author of two novels, Bloody Mary and Once, in Lourdes, and a collection of short stories, Blood and Milk, which won the Carl Sandburg Prize from Friends of the Chicago Public Library, and the prize for adult fiction from the Society of Midland Authors, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Several of her stories have been selected for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and in Best American Short Stories. Other honors for her individual stories, published in such magazines as TriQuarterly, Mademoiselle, and Ploughshares, include the Katherine Anne Porter Prize, the Nelson Algren Literary Award, and grants and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council. Her novel in stories Abracadabra won the Christopher Doheny Award for fiction that centers on a medical issue. The first chapter of her new novel, The Book of Harrison, a murder mystery, can be found in the New England Review, March 2024. Solwitz teaches fiction writing at Purdue University and lives in Chicago with her husband, the poet Barry Silesky.