We are excited to announce our Fall 2015 Author: Ann Patchett. She will appear on Sunday, October 4 at 7:pm at the Alpena High School Auditorium. Tickets are $10 and are available at the Library, or online at www.alpenalibrary.org Ann Patchett is a celebrated author, a devoted reader and a champion of literary culture. She has written seven books and is a frequent contributor to many publications, including The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly and The Wall Street Journal. She has served on the board of the Nashville Public Library Foundation and in 2011, when the last of Nashville's bookstores had been shuttered; Ann declared "I have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore." And so, in November of that year she opened Parnassus Books, a new refuge for the written word in the old "Athens of the South." In 2012 TIME named Ann one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for her efforts on behalf of the literary community. Writing of her friend on the occasion of that event, novelist Elizabeth Gilbert described Ann as "a woman of wisdom, determination, generosity and courage." Ann published her first story in The Paris Review while still a student at Sarah Lawrence College. Bel Canto, her fourth novel, was published in 2001 and was awarded the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. The world-renowned Lyric Opera Company of Chicago has commissioned a production based on that novel that will premiere in 2015. Her most recent novel State of Wonder was published in 2011. The Washington Post called that book "the smartest, most exciting novel of the summer" and Library Journal described it as "superbly rendered." State of Wonder will be our Community Read book this year. Ann is also the author of two works of nonfiction including Truth & Beauty, which won the Heartland Prize for Nonfiction in 2004. For more information contact Eric Magness-Eubank Library Director Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library emeacl@alpenalibrary.org 989.356.6188 ex 11