Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is an American novelist, short story writer and journalist whose fiction and literary non-fiction includes The Far Side of the Desert, Burning Distance, regional bestseller The Dark Path to the River, the short story collection No Marble Angels, and PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line. She’s also the senior editor of The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. She is a Vice President of PEN International and has served as the International Secretary of PEN International and Chair of PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee.
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Education
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman received a BA with honors from Principia College in 1968, an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1969, and an MA in English/creative writing from Brown University.
Personal life
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman was born Joanne Leedom in Dallas, Texas, daughter of Joanne Shriver Leedom and John Nesbitt Leedom. Based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Leedom-Ackerman was married to Dr. Peter Ackerman. Their sons are Dr. Nate Ackerman, a mathematician and former Olympic wrestler, and Elliot Ackerman, author and novelist and a decorated former US Marine captain.
Career
Leedom-Ackerman's fiction and literary nonfiction work includes The Far Side of the Desert, Burning Distance, PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line, The Dark Path to the River, No Marble Angels, and stories and essays in Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement, Remembering Arthur Miller, Electric Grace, Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales, Beyond Literacy, The Memorial Collection for Dr. Liu Xiaobo, Women For All Seasons, Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women, The Bicentennial Collection of Texas Short Stories, and What You Can Do. She is also the senior editor and contributor to The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate.
Both Leedom-Ackerman's fiction and her nonfiction focus on international affairs and conflicts.
A former reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, Leedom-Ackerman's career now includes work with organizations that serve writers and focus on issues of freedom of expression and human rights as well as on conflict resolution, education, development and refugee issues.
A Vice President of PEN International, she is the former International Secretary (2004-2007) and former Chair of their Writers in Prison Committee (1993-1997). Past president of PEN Center USA, she has served on the board and as Vice President of PEN American Center, and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She currently serves on the boards of the International Center for Journalists, Refugees International, American Writers Museum, and Words Without Borders and is a member of the advisory board of the Edward R. Murrow Center at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the ICRW Leadership Council.
Her work with academic institutions includes service at Johns Hopkins University as a member of the Board of Trustees, as chair of its Academic Affairs Committee, as advisory editor of The Hopkins Review, and as chair of the advisory board of the Johns Hopkins University Press. She is a former member of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Advisory Board. At Brown University, she served on the Board of Trustees and on the advisory board of the Brown Women Writers Project. She is an emeritus trustee of both universities.
Leedom-Ackerman is an emeritus Director of Human Rights Watch where she chaired the Asia Advisory Board. She has served on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children and on Save the Children's advisory board on Global Education. She has served on boards of the Albert Einstein Institution, the International Crisis Group, and Poets & Writers, and on the Advisory Boards of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the International Center for Research on Women
Selected bibliography
Books
The Far Side of the Desert, Oceanview Publishing, 2024
Burning Distance, Oceanview Publishing, 2023
PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line, Shearsman Books, 2022
The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate, editor Joanne Leedom-Ackerman with Yu Zhang, Jie Li, and Tienchi Martin-Liao, Potomac Books, 2020
The Dark Path to The River, Saybrook/Norton, 1988
No Marble Angels, Saybrook/Norton, 1987
Short stories
"Liu Xiaobo: On the Front Line of Ideas" in The Memorial Collection for Dr. Liu Xiaobo, edited by Chu Cai and Yu Zhang, Institute for China's Democratic Transition and Democratic China, 2017.
"The Arc of My Mother’s Life" in Electric Grace: Still More Fiction by Washington Area Women, edited by Richard Peabody, Paycock Press, fall, 2007
"The Beginning of Violence" in Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement: An Anthology, edited by Margaret Earley Whitt, University of Georgia Press, 2006
"Tutorica/The Tutor H.D.P.", Zabreb, 2006.
"Remembering Arthur Miller", (essay) edited Christopher Bigsby, London: Methuen, 2005
"The Child and the Snake" in Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales, edited by Willee Lewis. New York: M. Evans, 2003
"The Art of Writing Novels" in Beyond Literacy, edited by R. Patton Howell, Saybrook/Norton, 1989
"The Tutor" in Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women, edited by Janice L. White, The Texas Center for Writers Press, 1975
"Death Stalks A Building Once It Enters" in The Bicentennial Collection of Texas Short Stories, edited by James P. White, The Texas Center for Writers Press, 1974
"Juror’s essay" in Women for all Seasons, Women's Building, 1988; edited by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman and Wanda Coleman.
"Race Relations" in What You Can Do: Practical Suggestions For Action on Some Major Problems of the Seventies, David McKay & Co, 1971
Articles: