Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett
Born	December 2, 1963 (age 62); Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Novelist, memoirist, bookseller
Years active	1992–present
Known for	Bel Canto, The Dutch House
Notable work	Bel Canto, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Run, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, Tom Lake

Ann Patchett (born December 2, 1963) is a distinguished American novelist celebrated for her acclaimed book Bel Canto, which received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her bibliography also includes The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). Notably, The Dutch House was shortlisted for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Biography

Born in Los Angeles, Ann Patchett is the daughter of Frank Patchett, who served as a police captain, and Jeanne Ray, a nurse who later pursued a career as a novelist. Following her parents' separation, she relocated to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of six. She attended St. Bernard Academy, a private Catholic institution, before completing her undergraduate studies at Sarah Lawrence College. She then obtained an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Early in her literary journey, Patchett was awarded a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she composed her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars (1992). In 2010, alongside Karen Hayes, she co-established Parnassus Books in Nashville; the store opened its doors in 2011 and later introduced a bookmobile service in 2016 to broaden its reach. Patchett currently lives in Nashville with her spouse, Karl VanDevender.

Writing

Before graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, Patchett’s initial published piece appeared in The Paris Review. She spent nearly a decade writing primarily nonfiction at Seventeen magazine, although only about 20% of her contributions were published. She departed from the publication following disagreements with an editor.

Her writings have featured in prominent outlets such as The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, O, The Oprah Magazine, ELLE, GQ, Gourmet, and Vogue. Patchett’s debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), was later adapted into a television film in 1998. Her sophomore novel, Taft, earned the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in 1994. Subsequent works include The Magician’s Assistant (1997) and her critically acclaimed breakthrough, Bel Canto (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the PEN/Faulkner Award.

She authored the memoir Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, chronicling her friendship with writer Lucy Grealy. In 2007 came the novel Run, followed by an essay titled What Now? in 2008, inspired by a commencement address. Patchett served as editor for the 2006 edition of the anthology series The Best American Short Stories. Her 2011 novel, State of Wonder, set in the Amazon rainforest, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. The 2016 release, Commonwealth, received widespread critical praise and has been regarded as her "autobiographical first novel."

In 2019, Patchett ventured into children’s literature with the publication of Lambslide and also released the novel The Dutch House, which became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2020. November 2021 marked the publication of her essay collection titled These Precious Days. Her latest novel from 2023, Tom Lake, appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

During a 2024 interview with BBC, Patchett highlighted that maintaining focus and minimizing distractions are essential to her creative process. She consciously avoids television, mobile phones, and social media to safeguard her writing time despite actively managing social media platforms for her bookstore.

Her literary works have been translated into over thirty languages worldwide.

Recognition for individual works

Tennessee Writer of the Year Award from the Nashville Banner, 1994
Recipient of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Taft, 1994
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award with Bel Canto, 2001
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Bel Canto, 2002
Awarded the Orange Prize for Bel Canto, 2002
Named BookSense Book of the Year for Bel Canto, 2003
Shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize with State of Wonder, 2011

Career-wide distinctions

Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995 during mid-career
Included in Time magazine’s list of the world’s most influential individuals, 2012
Honored with the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, 2014
Received the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, 2014
Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2017
Granted the Carl Sandburg Literary Award by the Chicago Public Library Foundation, 2024

Novels

The Patron Saint of Liars (1992, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA)
Taft (1994, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA; reissued 1995 by Random House, New York, NY)
The Magician's Assistant (1997, Harcourt Brace, New York)
Bel Canto (2001, HarperCollins, New York)
Run (2007, HarperLuxe, New York)
State of Wonder (2011, Harper, New York)
Commonwealth (2016, Harper, New York, NY)
The Dutch House (2019, Harper, New York, NY)
Tom Lake (2023, Harper, New York, NY)

Nonfiction

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (2004, Harper Collins, New York)
What Now? (2008, Harper, New York)
The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (2011, Byliner)
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (2013, Harper, New York, NY)
These Precious Days: Essays (2021, HarperCollins, New York)

External links