Kolodny was born in New York City. Capping what was already a long and distinguished career, in 2012 Annette Kolodny published "In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery" (Duke University Press). The influential magazine "Indian Country Today" immediately named it as one of the 12 most important books in Native American Studies published in 2012. The Western Literature Association awarded the book the Thomas Lyon Prize as "the best book in Western literary and cultural studies published in 2012." Professor Kolodny had earlier made her mark in the field of Native American Studies with the publication of the long-lost 1893 masterpiece of Native American literature, Joseph Nicolar's "The Life and Traditions of the Red Man" (Duke University Press, 2007). This new edition included an interpretive analysis of Nicolar's text as well as a fascinating history of the Penobscot Nation in Maine. These two latest books mark the culmination of a scholarly career that began with studies of the American frontiers and moved into breakthrough examinations of trans-Atlantic contacts between Europeans and Native Americans.