Ann Patchett is the best selling American author of novels, children’s books, short stories, essays and memoirs. Patchett was born on December 2, 1963, in Los Angeles, California. Her father was a Los Angeles police captain (who arrested Charles Manson) and her mother, a nurse turned novelist. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother remarried and they moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Patchett graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. While at the University of Iowa her roommate was memorist and poet Lucy Grealy. The two remained lifelong friends and she wrote about their friendship in her memoir Truth & Beauty.
Patchett has received numerous awards and fellowships including a National Humanities Medal, England’s Women’s Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Women’s National Book Association’s Award. Her novel, The Dutch House, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
In addition to her writing, Patchett has been an independent bookseller since 2011 when she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee with her business partner Karen Hayes. She champions independent bookstores whenever she gets a chance. She currently lives in Nashville with her husband Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky.
