This conversation features best-selling author and book store owner Ann Patchett, interviewed by author and professor Kevin Wilson. They discuss Patchett’s book “Tom Lake” before a live audience at the Kentucky Author Forum. This conversation was recorded on February 12th, 2024 at the Kentucky Center in Louisville.

ANN PATCHETT is the author of nine novels, four books of nonfiction and one children’s book. Patchett has been the recipient of 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, the Book Sense Book of the Year, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her novel “The Dutch House” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In November, 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores.

KEVIN WILSON is the author of two story collections, and four novels. His book “Nothing to See Here” was a New York Times bestseller and a “Read with Jenna” book club selection. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, One Story, A Public Space, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2020 and 2021, as well as The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012. Wilson is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of the South.

Ann Patchett and Kevin Wilson