Ann Patchett, Margaret Renkl
On Valentine’s Day The Southern Book Prize showed their love to two Nashville authors. Ann Patchett won the fiction prize for her 2023 novel Tom Lake (our Best of Nashville Writers’ Choice winner for Best Audiobook), and Margaret Renkl took the nonfiction prize for The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.
Patchett owns Green Hills independent bookstore Parnassus Books, where lucky shoppers can sometimes find the author high on a ladder shelving books. Patchett also makes sure to keep her backlist in stock and signed, which is a delight for out-of-town visitors. Patchett’s shop dog Sparky is also frequently available for pets.
Renkl, originally from Alabama, is as Nashville as they come. She's a retired teacher, her husband is a teacher, and at least one of her three sons is a teacher. I seldom go a month without running into Renkl in a bookstore, at a restaurant, or in a park. Renkl launched Chapter 16, the daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, from which the Scene regularly sources its book reviews. She's likely best known for her heartfelt but often searing op-eds in The New York Times. (She was also once the Scene's books editor.)
The Southern Book Prize is special because its winners are selected by booksellers. And as a former bookseller, I can tell you that is a high bar. Booksellers are an integral part of the publishing process. I don’t care how many fancy New York editors and critics praise your book, if your local bookseller isn’t putting it in readers’ hands, it doesn’t sell. To get a bookseller to read your book, to like your book, to recommend your book and then to vote for your book is very special indeed.
Patchett’s Tom Lake follows Lara and her three daughters through the spring of 2020 on the family’s cherry orchard in Northern Michigan. Lara recounts to her daughters the summer she met (and fell in love with) the famous actor Peter Duke while acting alongside him in a summer theater company called Tom Lake. Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows is a literary devotional with 52 chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year.
Patchett and Renkl receive a donation in their name to the charity or nonprofit of their choice. Patchett is donating to PEN America, an organization at the forefront of the fight against the rise of book-banning attempts. Renkl is donating to Homegrown National Park, a nonprofit that encourages people to convert their outdoor spaces into beautiful and functioning wildlife habitats.
Renkl will appear at the Southern Festival of Books on Oct. 21-22
Patchett’s latest novel is available Aug. 1 via Harper
