'First for yourself, then for your audience'

 

“I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.    Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.” – Ann Patchett

Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1962, Patchett is winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel Bel Canto, and numerous accolades for The Magician's Assistant, also shortlisted for the Orange Prize, one of Great Britain’s most prestigious writing awards given annually to a female author of any nationality.

The daughter of novelist Jeanne Ray she had her first article published in the Paris Review when she was just 20 years old.  After working for Seventeen magazine for 9 years, she began her creative writing career with the novel The Patron Saint of Liars, which had modest sales but hit it big as a movie adaptation.

Also the editor of a short story collection, she opened her own bookstore in her hometown of Nashville, Tenn., when other stores were closing down and leaving few outlets for writers’ work.  In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." 

“I don't write for an audience,” Patchett said when asked that question.  “I don't think whether my book will sell, (and) I definitely don't try selling it before I finish writing it.