Featuring Ann Patchett
With Q&A moderated by author Elizabeth McCracken
We had a wonderful time celebrating our libraries with Ann Patchett and 600 friends at our 13th annual Love Our Libraries Author Luncheon! Together we raised a record-setting $509,460 to support Sarasota's amazing public libraries.
We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of our many community partners, sponsors, and donors who helped to make this special event a tremendous success. Thank you!
Take a look at our 2025 luncheon video to see all the ways the library supports our community.
2025 Event Photos
To see more photos from our Author Luncheon, click here to view our Facebook album.
About Ann Patchett
Award-winning Author
Ann Patchett is a celebrated author, devoted reader, and a champion of literary culture. She has written thirteen books and has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including England’s Orange Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 2011, when the last of Nashville’s bookstores had been shuttered, Ann declared, “I have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore.” And so, in November of that year she opened Parnassus Books and has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers. In 2012, TIME named Ann one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for her efforts on behalf of the literary community. Writing of her friend on the occasion of that event, novelist Elizabeth Gilbert described Ann as “a woman of wisdom, determination, generosity and courage.”
About Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken laces her work with distinctive humor; in her stories, the fantastical exists side by side with—and reveals the often tragic absurdities of—everyday life.
Elizabeth has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Thunderstruck & Other Stories won the 2015 Story Prize – her other stories have won three Pushcart Prizes, a National Magazine Award, and an O. Henry Prize and have been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Prize, The New York Times Magazine, and many other places.
Our Sponsors
This community celebration is made possible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.
