Joan Leegant’s new col­lec­tion of Jew­ish short sto­ries, Dis­placed Per­sons, won the New Amer­i­can Fic­tion Prize and was pub­lished this month. She is also the author of a nov­el, Wher­ev­er You Go, and anoth­er sto­ry col­lec­tion, An Hour in Par­adise, which won the PEN/​New Eng­land Book Award, the Wal­lant Award for Jew­ish Fic­tion, and was named a final­ist for the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award. For­mer­ly an attor­ney, Joan has taught at Har­vard, Okla­homa State, Hebrew Col­lege, and Cor­nish Col­lege in Seat­tle where she was also the writer-in-res­i­dence at Hugo House. For five years she was the vis­it­ing writer at the Shaindey Rud­off Pro­gram in Cre­ative Writ­ing at Bar-Ilan Uni­ver­si­ty while also giv­ing talks across the coun­try on Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture and cul­ture under the aus­pices of the State Depart­ment and serv­ing as a vol­un­teer ESL teacher for African refugees in South Tel Aviv. For more about Joan and her work vis­it: www​.joan​lee​gant​.com.