Ann Charney is a Montreal-based novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Ann Charney was born on April 3, 1940 in Brody/ Lwow, Poland (today Lviv, Ukraine) as the daughter of Dora Wengler Korsower and Michael Korsower.

Until the liberation of Poland by the Russians in 1945, Ann Charney’s family was forced to hide because they were Jewish. In 1950, Ann Charney and her parents immigrated to Canada. Since that time, she has lived almost continuously in Montreal, Quebec. In 1960, she married architect Melvin Charney. Together they have a daughter, Dara. In 1965, Charney received a master's degree in French literature from McGill University. She also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Ann Charney contributed to a number of Canadian and American periodicals as a columnist and writer of short stories. She published in Maclean’s magazine, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the Canadian Forum, and Queen’s Quarterly, among others. She also wrote book reviews. Charney's first novel, Dobryd, was published in 1973.

Ann Charney has received grants from Canada Council and the Conseil des arts et des lettres de Québec. She has received various awards, including National Magazine Awards, the Chatelaine Fiction Prize, and the Canadian Authors’ Association Prize, honouring both her fiction and non-fiction work. In April 2006, the French government decorated Ann Charney as an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Ann Charney is member of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois and the Writer’s Union of Canada. She was involved with Blue Metropolis since its foundation. She is a member of the Blue Metropolis Foundation Honorary Board.