Shoshana Milgram
Author and Professor at Virginia Tech University
Shoshana Milgram first realized the richness of O. Henry when she learned, during graduate school, that his writing had been studied by Boris Eikhenbaum, a famous Russian Formalist, in “O. Henry and the Theory of the Short Story.” Following up on Eikhenbaum’s recommendations entailed reading the complete O. Henry canon—a highlight of her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Stanford. In the years since, she has taught O. Henry stories in an undergraduate course (Introduction to Short Fiction) at Virginia Tech University, where she currently serves as Associate Professor of English, and she has lectured on O. Henry and his impact (including Ayn Rand’s admiration for him) at Objectivist conferences in Chicago and Austin. In February 2023, she led an interactive workshop (“Reading Together: Surprised by Joy!”) as part of Humanities Week at Virginia Tech.
