16 Facts About Ann Head

Ann Head was an American fiction writer whose work was regularly published in magazines including Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Ladies Home Journal, and others during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Ann Head wrote at least nine novels and two serial novels that were published in magazines, four of which were published as books, and at least 50 published short stories.

Ann Head was a mentor to novelist Pat Conroy after teaching him when he was a senior in high school.

Ann Head grew up in Beaufort and attended the school founded by her paternal grandmother, Abbie Holmes Christensen, an abolitionist who moved from Boston to Beaufort and started the Port Royal Agricultural School, known locally as the Shanklin School, to educate freed slaves after the Union army occupied Beaufort early in the Civil War.

Ann Head's grandfather, Niels Christensen, was a Union soldier in the Civil War and served as superintendent of the Beaufort National Cemetery from 1870 to 1876.

Ann Head was a writer from an early age, and completed her first book at age 8.

Ann Head was already working as a freelance writer when she met her first husband, engineer and inventor Howard Head, in December 1938.

Ann Head sold her first piece of fiction to Cosmopolitan when she was 28.

Ann Head wrote short stories, novelettes, and serials with "charm and gaiety" for magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, and Good Housekeeping.

Ann Head's goal was to write one story a month in hopes of selling at least three per year.

Ann Head's books were published in hard cover and then paperback in many countries.

Ann Head taught a creative writing class at Beaufort High School, where she mentored a student named Pat Conroy, who later became a famous novelist.

Ann Head died suddenly May 7,1968, after a cerebral aneurysm at age 52.

Ann Head was buried the next day at the Parish Church of St Helena in Beaufort.

Ann Head postumously inducted into the South Carolina Literary Hall of Fame 32.

The prize is intended to encourage young writers much as Ann Head did in her original creative writing class.