Patty Dann

Patty Dann (born October 30, 1953) is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. She studied at the University of Oregon, and later earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University. While working at the A&E network in 1986, she revised Mermaids, a coming-of-age novel she had written as her master's thesis, which was subsequently published by Ticknor and Fields. It was later made into a feature film of the same name in 1990.

Dann is also the author of the novels The Wright Sister (2020), Sweet & Crazy (2003), and Starfish (2013), the latter of which is a sequel to Mermaids. She has also written nonfiction works, including The Butterfly Hours: Transforming Memories into Memoir, The Baby Boat: A Memoir of Adoption (1998), focusing on the adoption of her son, and The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (2007), which reflected on the death of her husband.

Early life and education Dann was born on October 30, 1953, in New York City to Joanne ( Himmell) She has one brother, Jonathan, and a sister, Priscilla.

After graduating high school, Dann enrolled at Bennington College, but left after her freshman year, transferring to the University of Oregon, While attending the University of Oregon, she studied under writer Ralph Salisbury, whom she later cited as a major influence on her writing. where she submitted an early draft of Mermaids, a coming-of-age novel about a teenage girl in the 1960s, as her master's thesis. and the West Side YMCA in NYC.

Dann is married to journalist Michael Hill, and has one son and two stepsons.