Ward Just (born 1935 in Waukegan, Illinois) is an American writer. He is the author of 19 novels and numerous short stories.
Ward Just briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun. He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after which he left journalism to write fiction.
His novel, An Unfinished Season, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. His novel Echo House was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been a finalist for the O. Henry Award: in 1985 for his short story About Boston, and again in 1986 for his short story The Costa Brava, 1959. His most recent novels include Exiles in the Garden (2009), Rodin;s Debutante(2011), American Romantic(2014), and The Eastern Shore(2016)..
In his later years he suffered from Lewy body syndrome and died on December 19, 2019.
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