Ann Patchett is the author of nine novels: The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, and Tom Lake. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories 2006, and has written four books of nonfiction—Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy, What Now? an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays examining the theme of commitment, and These Precious Days, essays on home, family, friendship, and writing. In 2019, she published her first children’s book, Lambslide, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, followed by Escape Goat in 2020. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, 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, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Bookseller’s Association’s Most Engaging Author Award, and the Women’s National Book Association’s Award. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. In November, 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores on NPR, The Colbert Report (including the series finale), Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, The Martha Stewart Show, and The CBS Early Show, among many others. Along with James Patterson, she was the honorary chair of World Book Night. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Ann Patchett lives in Nashville with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky.

Patrick Ryan is the author of the short story collection The Dream Life of Astronauts, which was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch, LitHub, Refinery 29, and Electric Literature, and was long-listed for The Story Prize. His collection of linked short stories, Send Me, was selected for Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers Program. Ryan is also the author of three novels for young adults: Gemini Bites, In Mike We Trust, and Saints of Augustine. His writing has appeared in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories, Tales of Two Cities, Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read, the periodicals Tin House, One Story, Granta, Crazyhorse, Catapult, The Iowa Review, Yale Review, and elsewhere. Patrick is the recipient of writing fellowships from MacDowell and the National Endowment for the Arts. He earned a B.A. from Florida State University and an M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Ryan is the former associate editor of Granta and the current editor-in-chief of One Story. His forthcoming novel, Buckeye, will be published by Random House.

Kyra Sedgwick is an award-winning actress, producer, and director, whose role in the smash hit series The Closer earned her both an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Her most recent film, Space Oddity, premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and was released on March 31st. Sedgwick can currently be seen in the second season of Amazon’s smash hit The Summer I Turned Pretty. Upcoming are the films Bad Shabbos and Thirsty. Previous film roles include Born on the Fourth of July, Singles, Phenomenon, The Game Plan, The Possession, and The Edge of Seventeen. On television, Sedgwick recently starred in Call Your Mother and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As a filmmaker, Kyra was nominated for a DGA Award for her feature directorial debut, Story of a Girl. Her short Girls Weekend premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Sedgwick has also directed episodes of Grace & Frankie, Into the Dark, City on a Hill, Ray Donovan, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the upcoming HBOMax series Girls on the Bus.