Sharon Solwitz has twice been the recipient of the Nelson Algren Award. In addition, she has won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, literary awards from the Illinois and Kansas arts councils, and a prize in the Stand fiction contest. Her stories have appeared in Mademoiselle, The Chicago Tribune, American Short Fiction, and other magazines. In 1991 she received a fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois. New work is forthcoming in Boulevard and with the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project.