Patty Dann

Patty Dann (born October 30, 1953) is an American novelist and nonfiction writer, perhaps best known for Mermaids, a coming-of-age novel about a teenage girl which was published in 1986. In 1990, it was made into a movie starring Cher, Winona Ryder, Bob Hoskins and Christina Ricci. Her most recent novel is Starfish, which is a sequel to Mermaids. Her newest book is "The Butterfly Hours: Transforming Memories into Memoir," which has been chosen by Poets & Writers as One of the Best Books on Writing.

Dann has written two other novels, "Starfish," a sequel to Mermaids (2013) and "Sweet & Crazy" (2003), about a 39-year-old woman who lives with her young son in a small town in Ohio, as the events of September 11, 2001 impacted their lives. She is also the author of two memoirs, Baby Boat: A Memoir of Adoption (1998) about the adoption of her son, and The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth About it) (2007) about the death of her husband from brain cancer, Her work has been translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Chinese and Korean. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, O, Redbook, More, Poets & Writers, Forbes Woman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, "The Writer’s Handbook," Dirt: An Anthology About Keeping House" and "This I Believe: On Motherhood."

She has served as a judge for the Scholastic Young Writers Awards. She has an MFA in Writing from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of Oregon. Dann taught at Sarah Lawrence College and currently teaches at the West Side YMCA. Dann is a member of the New York Writers Workshop, the Authors Guild and P.E.N. She was cited by New York Magazine as one of the “Great Teachers of NYC.” In 2008, she married Michael Hill, a journalist. She has one son and two stepsons.

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