This year’s edition of Out Loud! The Metro Library Network Author Series gets underway on Friday, June 7 at 7 p.m. with Ann Patchett, an alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction.

The event—which is free and open to the public with no tickets required—will take place in the Hotel at Kirkwood Center. The Out Loud! Author Series is a program of the Cedar Rapids, Marion, and Hiawatha Public Libraries. Organizers have requested that patrons register for the events they intend to attend by visiting http://bit.ly/OutLoud or calling one of the metro libraries.

Patchett is the author of six novels, including the New York Times
bestselling Run; The Patron Saint of Liars, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Taft, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize; The Magician’s Assistant; and Bel Canto, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, the BookSense Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent novel, State of Wonder, was called “a spellbinder…even better than Patchett’s breakthrough Bel Canto,” in a starred review by Kirkus Reviews.

She is also the author of two works of nonfiction: the New York Times bestselling Truth & Beauty and What Now? Patchett has written for many publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Gourmet, the New York Times, Vogue, and the Washington Post.

Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where in late 2011 she and partner opened Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore. Her commitment to ensuring that Nashville had a high-quality bookstore in an era when brick and mortar stores often struggle led to her being named one of “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” by Time in 2012.

Following her presentation, Patchett will take questions from the audience and then sign books. The Cedar Rapids Barnes & Noble will be on hand with copies of her work available for purchase.

All attendees can enter to win a Nook HD+ and three e-books by Patchett.

The Out Loud! Author Series will present two additional authors in 2013 including Gillian Flynn, author of the runaway bestseller Gone Girl (June 14), and 2013 Edgar Award winner Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River, Live by Night, and many other titles (June 28).

More information about the Out Loud! Author Series, as well as information about the Linn Area Reads program, is available at www.metrolibrarynetwork.org/outloud.

Out Loud! The Metro Library Network Author Series is supported by the Giacoletto Foundation with media support from The Gazette and event book sales provided by Barnes & Noble Booksellers.