LIVE! #63
6 October 2024
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Ann Patchett
- Degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA).
- Fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, MA).
- Opened Parnassus Books bookstore in her adopted hometown of Nashville in 2011.
- First published work was in The Paris Review while still an undergraduate.
- Worked at Seventeen magazine for nine years.
- Has written nine novels, at least one children's book, and five other non-fiction books: memoirs and essay collections.
- Bel Canto (2001), her fourth novel, was her breakout best-seller, winning PEN Faulkner and Orange Prize.
- Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.
- Patchett's agent is Felicity Blunt.
- Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and continues managing Parnassus Books.
"I started with Our Town and then figured out who the characters were."
- Ann Patchett
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Writing Tom Lake
- In 2001 while on book tour for Bel Canto Patchett flew from Detroit to Traverse City and drove to two hours to a book signing at McLean & Eakin bookstore in Petoskey, MI.
- The owners became friends, and along with Patchett's friend Erin Whiting, who grew up on a cherry orchard, and who lives in Traverse City and founded Parallel 45 theater company, they were able to answer all her Northern Michigan questions.
- While writing Dutch House Patchett had an idea: "I want to write a novel about a woman who played Emily in Our Town in High School.”
- Patchett also used her experience at Yaddo and MacDowell to understand summer stock “summer camp for adults.”
- Influenced by Dr. Zhivago, Our Town, and Sam Shepard's Fool for Love.
- Patchett wrote the entire novel at her new treadmill desk.
- Novels Commonwealth, Dutch House, Tom Lake work like a trilogy.
- Cover: While visiting Paris Patchett saw Gustave Caillebotte's incomplete painting, Bed of Daisies, and decided that would be her cover. The empty spot looked to her like a grave.
- Tom Hanks read Dutch House; Felicity Blunt passed Patchett's note to Meryl Streep asking if she would read Tom Lake.
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Coming of Age Fiction, Family Life Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction, 20th Century Historical Fiction
- Genre: Present-Day Realistic Long-Form Archplot
- Print Pages: 320; Word count: 102,430
Reading Grade: 7th; Avg. wds/sent.: 12.10
Lexical Density: 44.85; Flesch Reading Ease: 80.11 - POV: Lara; Person: 1st; Tense: Present
- Publish date: August 1, 2023
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Audio book length: (11 hours, 22 mins)
- Narrators: Meryl Streep
- Recognition: #1 NYT Bestseller, Amazon Editors' Best Books of 2023, Reese's Book Club Pick
