Ann Patchett Biography
It was on December 2, 1963, in Los Angeles, California, the United States that Ann Patchett was born to a Los Angeles Police captain named Frank Patchett and a nurse, Jeanne Ray. Her mother would later become a novelist. Ann was brought up alongside her older sister. She was still a little girl when her parents ended their marriage in a divorce. Subsequently, her mother got married for a second time and Ann moved with her to Nashville, Tennessee. The writer was only six at the time. Each day as she grew up, she would go to her grandmother’s to watch the soap opera All My Children. She has a great relationship with her grandmother and her mother. Her mother would go ahead to get divorced again and then marry for a third time. It was after the third marriage that she confided in her daughter that she should have just remained married to her first husband. For her education, she went to a private Catholic school, St. Bernard Academy in Nashville and afterward, she attended Sarah Lawrence College. She has been writing for a long time, but her first story was published in The Paris Review when she was still in college. She worked at Seventeen magazine for 9 years where she wrote non-fiction. In every five articles that she wrote, Seventeen only bought one and everyone in the office was made to read and comment on the work. While she described them as cruel, she said they were the ones that helped her to become the workhorse that she is today. Unfortunately, an editor was brought that she had a fight with, and she left the magazine. She also had a political column with Bridal Guide. She has also written for publications such as O, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, ELLE, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The Washington Post.
Books
Ann Patchett published her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars in 1992 followed by Taft in 1994. In 1997, she published The Magician’s Assistant, followed by Bel Canto (2001), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), and her autobiographical novel, Commonwealth in 2016. She also has several non-fiction works to her credit including Truth and Beauty: A Friendship (2004) which captures how she met Lucy Grealy and their friendship; What Now? (2008), a string of essays; and The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (2011) which captures her experiences and life as a struggling writer and the success that followed. Her other works are The Mercies (2011), This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (2013), and How Knitting Saved My Life. Twice (2013). Ann has recorded several awards in a career that has spanned decades including the PEN/Faulkner Award, Orange Prize, BookSense Book of the Year, and Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. In 1994, she was recognized with the Nashville Banner Tennessee Writer of the Year Award.
Husband – Karl VanDevender
Ann Patchett has been married twice. She was still in her early 20s when she got married the first time. The marriage ended when she was 25, only a year into it. Her first divorce was hard that she never wanted to get married again or even be in any relationship ever again. However, 11 years later, she got married again to a man named Karl VanDevender, who is 16 years older than her. Anna Patchett and Karl VanDevender do not have any children. According to the writer, she had never wanted to have kids in her life and she has come to find it very liberating. More so, she also indicated that both her father and mother had encouraged her against having children. In addition to that, the nuns that brought her up in Catholic school whom she saw as role models were also people without children. See Also: Zadie Smith – Biography, Family and Net Worth
Ann Patchett Parents and Family
As already stated, the parents of Ann Patchett are Jeanne Ray and Frank Patchett. The two did not stay married for a very long time before Jeanne, a very beautiful woman, left to get married two times more. She only has a sister. Patchett is close to her family, despite the constant movement that she had as a kid due to the separation of her parents. The result of this is books that are mostly centered around the family.
