Alumni Info
Name: Natalie Harnett
Major: English
Graduation Year: 1993
“It’s so satisfying to be published. . . . But success has not removed my desire to write.”
– Natalie Harnett
Past Profiles
Since the release of The Hollow Ground (St. Martin’s Press), a coming-of-age story and murder mystery set in Pennsylvania’s ravaged coal country, first-time novelist Natalie Harnett ’93 has become a hot literary property. In May, her book won the prestigious John Gardner Fiction Book Award for 2015, putting its author in the company of such previous recipients as Jonathan Franzen and Meg Wolitzer. Four months later, the Appalachian Writers Association named Hollow Ground the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year for fiction. And in November, the title was long-listed for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Awards, alongside works by Martin Amis, Siri Hustvedt, and Haruki Murakami, among others. “I’m totally blown away to be among incredible writers I’ve admired all my life,” says Harnett.
A Queens native who always dreamed of becoming a novelist, she majored in English at QC with a concentration in creative writing; her teachers included Joseph McElroy and Susan Fox. “They were both very supportive of me,” recalls Harnett. On the recommendation of McElroy—an award-winning novelist himself—she entered Columbia’s MFA program. After graduating, she began teaching, primarily remedial classes and English as a second language. She married a restaurant manager, settled in Long Island, had a daughter, and kept writing despite repeated setbacks. “I dreamed of being published by a major publisher,” says Harnett, who completed three novels that remain unsold. “My first agent quit. I had to accept the fact that it might not happen. The joy had to be that I loved writing.”