Ann Packer

In addition to her upcoming novel Some Bright Nowhere, Ann Packer is the author of three bestselling novels: The Children’s Crusade, Songs Without Words, and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, which received the Kate Chopin Literary Award among many other prizes and honors. Her short fiction has been published in two collections — Mendocino and Other Stories and Swim Back to Me — and includes stories that appeared in The New Yorker and in the O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies. Ann’s work has been translated into over a dozen languages and published around the world.

Ann was born in Stanford, California, and grew up near Stanford University, where her parents were professors. She attended Yale University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 1995 she returned to the Bay Area, where she raised her children and lived for many years.  Now, along with her husband, the novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias, she divides her time between New York City and Maine but still spends winters in Northern California.