OGDEN — Ann Patchett has a unique perspective among authors.

In addition to writing 10 fiction novels and winning several awards, she also has experience in selling and promoting books.

On Thursday, she was the guest of honor and keynote speaker for the Ogden School Foundation’s 30th annual Fall Author Event at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center.

Prior to last week’s Fall Author Event Gala, Patchett spoke with the Standard-Examiner about her career, owning a book store, emerging trends in literary consumption and her advice to a society with an ever-growing amount of distractions.

‘I have never wanted to do anything else’

From a very early age, Patchett said she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

“I have never wanted to do anything else,” she said. “I am incredibly close friends with my reading teacher from first through third grade, a nun — Sister Nina — and she would tell you that I wanted to be a writer when I was six, seven, eight. I don’t know where that comes from, but it’s the answer that I always gave when an adult asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.”

However, by her own admission, her first attempts at writing weren’t about to capture any literary prizes.

“I wrote a lot of things that were very bad when I was a child,” she said. “I wrote a lot of bad poetry. I really wanted to be a poet when I was a kid, and when I went to college, I went to college thinking I was going to study poetry and be a poet — really glad that didn’t work out.”

Patchett said during her second year of college was when she shifted gears to writing fiction.

“That was a great move because I felt like I really clicked when I started writing short stories,” she said. “And then when I was about 26, I wrote my first novel, and after that, I didn’t ever write short stories again.”

First novel

That first full novel was The Patron Saint of Liars, published in 1992.

“The very best thing that has ever happened to me in my career was finishing my first novel,” Patchett said. “That day that I typed the last sentence and printed it out was, I think, the happiest day of my professional life because it was what I had always wanted to do.”

She noted that none of the subsequent novels she wrote have had quite the same impact.

“You know the old expression — the first time is luxury and the second time is privilege,” she said. “That’s sort of what it’s like. Publishing my first novel, going on my first book tour, getting my first book review in the Times — all of those things stand out as giant happy milestones. Do I remember my third review in the Times or when I finished writing my fourth novel? Not so much.”

One thing Patchett said she has taken notice of on subsequent projects is just how much the writing process has changed over three decades.

“It’s so unbelievably different from what it is now, mainly because there was no internet, and so everything was quiet,” she said. “I was really poor and I had a fellowship and I was living in Cape Cod for the winter and I didn’t have a television. I just wrote all day and nothing interrupted me. Now my whole life is trying to find the time to write another novel. It’s kind of amazing because I keep writing them and I keep finding the time, but the process isn’t at all the way it was and it’s just because life is so busy now.”

Parnassus Books

Many authors do book signings. Many authors do book tours. Many authors go on television to promote their latest work.

All of these activities allow authors to take the pulse of the public’s literary tastes and where literacy is trending.

But Patchett has taken this a step further.

Ann Patchett co-founded and currently owns her own independent bookstore — Parnassus Books of Nashville,  which is set to celebrate 15 years in business this November.

“I started the business with a partner, somebody that I didn’t know, that we both wanted to open a bookstore,” she said. “We formed a partnership and she was the manager and she really made all the decisions. And then five years ago she retired, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Wait, that’s not one of the options. You don’t get to leave.’ So I bought her out and I own the whole bookstore.”

As part of this year’s Fall Author Event Gala festivities, a replica was built of a portion of Parnassus Books at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center.

While not necessarily overseeing the bookstore on a daily basis, she said she enjoys interacting with the people working there.

“I don’t work in the store but I’m in the store all the time doing things,” she said. “Just getting to talk with them about books, and we go to the movies together and go out to dinner together, and that is really fun.”

Patchett also does frequent video series for the store promoting books of all sorts.

She said her experience with the store has also given the impression that, even in a world full of distractions, people are still madly in love with reading today.

“Certainly, you hear that they’re reading less, but every morning when the store opens there are people lined up outside,” she said. “There are days, especially on the weekends, you can’t walk through that store. It’s so crowded. And we’re a tourist destination. People come from all over the world to come to this bookstore. So you get the feeling — I get the feeling every day — that people just cannot get enough of books. All ages — kids are coming in, older people are coming in, everybody’s coming in.”

And on the topic of “madly in love,” Patchett said she’s noticed a growing interest in a genre that didn’t quite have the best reputation.

“The thing that I have seen change the most in 15 years is romance,” she said. “When we opened the store, we did not have a romance section. Romance was still the kind of romance that I knew when I was growing up, which were little chunky mass market, what we called ‘bodice rippers,’ like ‘The Pirate and the Maiden,’ that kind of thing. Romance is now not that at all and it is a huge driving force. First we had a shelf — like, one shelf — and now we have a whole section of romance. We have a romance subscription club. We have a romance book club, and it’s great. The books look like all the other books. You don’t pick it up and think, ‘Oh, well, that’s just a romance novel,’ and everybody reads it.”

She said this romance revolution has also lifted other genres as well.

“There was also the rise of fantasy, which, again, there was science fiction before, but now fantasy is a huge genre,” she said. “And now we have ‘romantasy,’ where the dragon gets the princess at the end, so there’s a lot of change.”

Patchett said the most exciting part of it all is that she gets to see people discover their love of reading.

“I always say, ‘I don’t care what you read, I care that you read,'” she said. “If people are loving their romance and their romantasy, and it brings them into the bookstore, and they join the book clubs, they’re also then going to be reading other things. We have a classics book club at the store and we have a romance book club. Once a year, the romance book club and the classic book club get together and they have a joint session. This year, they read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. And I think that’s fantastic.”

‘Don’t give your soul to AI’

Due to scheduling conflicts, Patchett was unable to do the traditional meeting with student essay winners the day after the gala or address students from across the district.

She said, however, she was very impressed with the essayists, who were recognized at last week’s gala.

“I would say, you’re doing a great job,” she said. “I was really impressed with the essays.”

Patchett also had a message for students across the Ogden School District.

“Reading matters and writing matters and learning how to express yourself in your own words articulately is really important,” she said. “And don’t give your soul to AI and let AI write your papers for you and do your thinking for you because you have to hold on to that. That’s who you are.”