Ann Patchett's Run

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Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett's first published byline was in The Paris Review while she was still in college, but that didn’t stop Seventeen magazine from publishing only one in five of the nonfiction pieces she produced while on staff. After nine years of the same frustration, Patchett lost it, screaming to a despised editor, "That's it. I'll never darken your door again!" And she didn't. Her first novel, Patron Saint of Liars, was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1992. She has released three more novels since. Her fourth novel, Bel Canto, won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in 2002, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Patchett remembers one reviewer's take on Bel Canto—"He had this one line that really bothered me when he said that my first three books were extremely competent but basically 'women's fiction.' I'm paraphrasing, but he said that this was the jump into 'real' literature, to which I wanted to say, "Because that's what interests you!'" Patchett's follow-up novel, Run, garnered rave reviews from readers and critics alike.