Furman, Laura, 1945-

Laura Furman (1945- ) is a novelist, essayist, and short-story writer and a member of the University of Texas faculty in the Department of English. Furman has published three novels, two collections of short stories, one memoir, and an anthology, as well as dozens of short stories and essays.

Furman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 19, 1945, and received her B.A. in English from Bennington College in Vermont in 1968. In 1978 she moved to Houston to serve as the senior editor of Houston City Magazine and since then has continued to live in Texas. In 1983 she began her career at the University of Texas at Austin Department of English as a lecturer, and is currently serving as an Associate Professor of English. Furman has received many awards and grants, including residencies at the Yaddo retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York (1972-1978, 1984, 1985), the Dobie Paisano Grant from the Texas Institute of Letters and the University of Texas at Austin (1981), and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1982-1983). She was also the founding editor of the literary journal American Short Fiction (1990-1994).