-Well, good afternoon everyone.

And are you having a good time?

[ Applause ] I'm so glad.

And it's so exciting to welcome you to the 26th National Book Festival.

And as always, I'd like to give special thanks to the James Madison Council, the Library's major philanthropic group, for sponsoring this stage and the festival.

I have the great honor of conferring the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

The prize honors an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art, but, also, for the originality in thought imagination.

The award commends strong, unique, enduring voices that throughout consistently accomplished careers have told us something essential about the American experience.

Previous winners of the prize include Geraldine Brooks, George Saunders, James McBride, Don DeLillo, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Philip Roth, Colson Whitehead, and Jesmyn Ward, among others.

Recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the United Kingdom Women's Prize for Fiction, and most recently the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, among other honors, Ann Patchett is the author of 10 novels, including "The Dutch House," Pulitzer Prize finalist, "The Patron Saint of Liars," "Bel Canto," "Commonwealth," and "Taft," as well as nonfiction and children's books.

Wait.

My favorite isn't in here, "Tom Lake."

[ Applause ] Sorry.

I don't know how that got omitted.

[ Laughter ] Ann was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World and received the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture.

Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Ann will discuss her latest book, "Whistler," most recently The New York Times' number-one best-seller.

Ann, may I ask you to come to the podium?

[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.

Should I go back to my... I left this out.

I hereby present the 20-- [ Laughter ] -the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction to Ann Patchett.

Congratulations.

[ Cheers and applause ] We've created an exciting conversation for you this evening.

Ann is going to be in conversation with Tayari Jones, the author of five novels, including "An American Marriage," an Oprah's Book Club selection that also appeared on Barack Obama's summer reading list.

[ Applause ] She has won the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Prize, an NAACP Image Award, and has been published in two dozen countries.

Jones is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.

Her latest novel, "Kin," was selected for Oprah's Book Club.

[ Applause ] Tayari and Ann are talking today with award-winning journalist Mary Louise Kelly, who serves as host of NPR's "All Things Considered" and NPR's national-security podcast, "Sources & Methods."

She is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of two novels, "Anonymous Sources" and "The Bullet."

Her 2023 memoir, "It.

Goes.

So.

Fast.

", debuted as a New York Times best-seller.

So I turn it over to you.

Thank you all for being here today.

-Thank you.

[ Applause ] Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

-Hi, Mary Louise.

-Welcome to you both.

-[ Laughs ] -I have to say, maybe it's because you all both wrote books that we are about to talk about that take you into the inner lives and thoughts of young girls, but I'm sitting here, looking at you, Ann, and thinking, "The Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction?"

What would little Ann Patchett, who wanted to grow up and be a writer -- what would she have thought of all this?

-And you know what I'm thinking is?

I feel like I'm too young for a lifetime achievement.

[ Laughter and applause ] -We all are.

-When I first found out about this, the first person I called was Geraldine Brooks.

And I was like, "Oh, God!

I mean, thanks, but seriously, it's such a --" "It's like the nail in the coffin."

And she said, "No, I know, I know."

[ Laughter ] -I think y'all are past the emerging-writers phase of literary writing.

-Right.

-But you'll have to live with it.

So, we are here to talk about the books.

And many people in this room will have read "Whistler" and "Kin"... [ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.

-...which have riches upon riches of characters and lovers who come and go and kids and parents and all kinds of relationships.

I want to start with -- It struck me that there's a central relationship in each of your books.

Tayari, welcome.

And explain the relationship between Annie and Niecy.

Who are they?

What binds them?

-Well, first, thank you, everybody for coming here.

[ Applause ] I think that this festival is showing us that all these stories about how no one is reading anymore, that, you know, it's a lie.

[ Laughter and applause ] "Kin" is a story of two women who have been friends since they were infants.

They've known each other since they were two motherless babies sharing a cradle.

And it's kind of a story that many of us have, how you have your childhood friends, and as you grow older, your lives go in different directions.

But you can't really know yourself without knowing the people that have known you for your whole life.

And your best and oldest friends carry with them in their hearts the true record of your life.

You know the experience you have, like sometimes you can have a memory and you can tell a story and you feel like you only know half of it.

And your friend says, "No, you forgot this part."

[ Laughter ] And so you don't even have the whole memory yourself.

You need that other piece.

So it's that story about the person who has your archive.

-Kelly: Yeah.

-And it's set in the 1950s and '60s, in a changing country, as their own lives are changing.

-So, the story, among many other things, but of two young girls when we meet them, who grow into young women, who are cradle friends.

Okay.

"Whistler," Ann, is many things, but at the heart of it, it is the story of Daphne and Eddie Triplett.

Who are they?

Who are they to each other?

[ Audio feedback ] -Wow, that's loud.

[ Laughter ] Daphne is 53 years old, and when she was 9 years old, she had a stepfather named Eddie Triplett.

They haven't seen each other since Daphne was 9.

They were in a car accident together.

They run into each other.

Eddie recognizes her.

And they just pick up where they left off.

They loved each other so much, and they go at their relationship, looking at the past and the present and the future, kind of like a house of fire.

And I also think people are reading everywhere, and I'm so grateful to you for being here and for reading books.

-So... [ Applause ] Here's where I'm going with this.

-Okay.

-Y'all are already gathering.

These are two really different relationships -- girls who are not sisters, but are as close as you can get, a woman and her stepfather who knew each other for what, like a year?

-Like two years, yeah.

-Two years.

And, then, they don't see each other for four decades, and they didn't even try.

Completely out of contact.

The language you two both use is near identical.

Ann, you write about the bond, and Daphne says, "Our hearts were forever stitched together, mine and Eddie's."

And, then, when I read yours, I almost gasped, Tayari, because you describe it as "hearts with strings --" "hearts growing strings."

And you have Annie, writing about Niecy, saying, "Me and Niecy weren't sisters, nowhere near twins.

I don't have what she got, nor the other way around.

What you have the same isn't what binds you.

Hearts grow strings because of what you know that's the same, what happened to you that's the same, and, then, what you want is the same."

"Hearts stitched together," "hearts growing strings."

It kind of gave me hope, because I feel like so many people come in and out of all of our lives.

You all are describing there are some stitches that cannot be unstitched.

Where would you go with that?

-I actually think that things can become unstitched, but we choose to remain close to the people we're close to.

I think relationships, all relationships, take work and commitment.

I think that's what makes the work of both these novels is the way that we stay connected.

And even the fact that we use similar language, I think that when you choose to write about love and connection, that you have to use words like "heart" and "stitched heart."

Like, you have to be vulnerable enough to use -- like, the word "heart" is not a terribly novel or new term.

I mean, we as children draw hearts on Valentine's Day.

We use the word, "My heart feels," this or that.

You even see it on greeting cards.

But sometimes just an ordinary word has to get the job done, because love, though profound, is also beautifully ordinary.

And that's sometimes the language you have to use.

But it's also a lot of work to stay connected.

And every day that you love someone, you work at keeping that love going.

You work at the everyday sacrifices of love.

No one stays in a healthy, connected relationship without working at it.

It doesn't just happen.

You have to do it.

-Yeah.

Although apply that to romantic love.

Because, Annie, whose heart has grown strings to Niecy, grows up, and she meets a boy.

-As we do.

-Who she really likes.

-As we do.

-As we do.

And she describes it in a different way, as "a chord as fragile as spider silk," that's connecting them.

This is a character, Bobo -- And if you haven't read the book, where do we even start with poor Bobo?

[ Laughter ] -I will say he is more complex than his name would suggest.

[ Laughter ] -I would say some stitches maybe should be unstitched.

-Oh, I mean, his given name -- His given name is Carver, because he's named after the scientist George Washington Carver, actually.

His nickname is Bobo.

I mean, they're young people.

Like, you know, young people fall in love, they fall out of love.

And as one is learning about romantic love -- I mean, part of the thrill, I think, of young love is its fragility.

I mean, that's part of the thrill of it.

"Will it be here today?

Will it be here tomorrow?"

But this friendship love between Annie and Niecy, this cradle love, I mean, that is part of the joy of friendship is the ways that we kind of -- We continually renew our vows with our friends, and we don't have all the rules.

Like, romantic love has so many rules.

It has this expectation of monogamy, this expectation of continual sexual attraction.

But the thing about your friends, like, you expect your friends to accept you as your life changes, as you change.

It's just a different type, more durable love.

And this "Kin," I think, is a novel about the enduring nature of friendship.

-Where were you going with the "hearts being stitched"?

-You know what I was thinking is about the fact that we're friends.

And, you know, I love your writing.

Maybe I plagiarized it.

[ Laughter ] You know, but I think that you and I have a sensibility that we share that we are going to greet our characters with the same kind of respect and love, which is why you and I get along.

And so it makes perfect sense to me that I could write a sentence and you could write a sentence, because it's about a similar sensibility.

Do you believe that?

-I do believe that we both only write characters that we care about.

Like, we don't hate-write.

-And it's a real problem for me, books of authors that shall remain nameless -- -I don't like that book either.

[ Laughter and applause ] -But when I read a novel that is excellent, and I'm reading it.

I'm just thinking -- -It wasn't excellent.

-No.

But I'm thinking, "This person is so smart.

They're such a good reader.

But there is no one I root for."

There is no one in the book -- And it's not even that I think, "Oh, well, you know, you shouldn't do that."

I just don't want to read that book.

[ Laughter ] You just don't think they should either.

-In our friendship, she's the nice one.

[ Laughter ] But it's true.

Like, if there is any character -- There's only one character in "Kin" whom I don't empathize, and that character has a very brief role.

Because when I'm writing a novel, I spend so much time with those characters.

-That's right.

-I don't want to spend time with people for whom I have contempt, right?

So I only write characters that I understand their point of view.

I may not agree with their actions, but I understand why they do it, and I can see a road to redemption for each.

And that's just the way that I am as a person, I think, is the way that I am as a writer.

-Right.

-And I think that is the way you are as a person and as a writer, and it shows in the work.

I actually disagree with people -- I feel like it's very rare that I have read a novel and met the author and I couldn't square them.

I feel like people show who they are through the worlds they create.

-Yeah.

-Speaking of writing, here's another thing that you all seem to have in common with these books, which is neither of these books, "Whistler" or "Kin," are the books that you set out to write.

Ann, you have talked about how you were writing another book for what, like a year?

-Mm-hmm.

-And it eventually -- -It was bad.

[ Laughter ] It was really bad.

Yeah.

So, in "Tom Lake," there are three daughters, and the youngest daughter is Nell.

And in the book that died, Nell was moving to New York City to be an actress.

She had a terrible boyfriend she moved with.

She was working in a cupcake shop.

Jump in at any point if you just think, "That's the book I've got to read."

And I had been working on it for such a long time and thinking about it for such a long time.

And my husband wanted to go on a trip, and I said, "I got to figure out my book.

Take your sister."

He and his sister went to Paris, and they were gonna be gone for 10 days.

And on the second day, I was like, "Oh.

I know what's wrong with this book -- everything.

It cannot be fixed."

And I threw it out.

And, then, I just immediately had an idea for a novel.

And the great thing, which I sat down and started, is not the way I ever work.

But Liz Gilbert said to me -- -Whoo!

-Yeah.

And she deserves it, too.

-This is Elizabeth, "Eat, Pray, Love?"

-Yes.

-That's what we call her -- Elizabeth "Eat, Pray, Love" Gilbert.

[ Laughter ] Her name's gotten super long.

But she said, "Runway is runway.

And if you are working, working, working, working on something, even if it doesn't have anything to do with what you end up with, it's still the work.

In your subconscious, you're getting things done."

And that's how it felt.

-Okay.

Same question to you, Tayari, because this is your first book since "American Marriage" in 2018.

Am I right?

-That juggernaut, "American Marriage."

-But you were working on one about what, gentrification in the modern South?

And you worked on it for how long?

-I was trying to write a novel.

It was my first time really writing a novel that I had pitched as an idea.

And it was a pretty good idea.

It was a novel about -- I was really interested -- I've always wanted to write about -- I write about the urban South, because I feel like most Southern novels are about the rural South.

Like, when people think about the South, I always say they want a novel about, you know, grandmothers and mules.

And I grew up in Atlanta.

I grew up in a Southern city.

And I've always written about that.

And I also think Southern novels are about the past.

-Kelly: Yes.

-And I wanted to write about, you know, Atlanta, this Southern city that is my home.

And so I wanted to write something really contemporary.

And I was working on it, and I was working so hard.

Ann knows.

I wrote her letters about it.

And the novel wasn't novel-ing.

Like, it didn't pop, right?

I felt like I was working with a hammer and nails and saw and I was making noise when I should have been making music.

It just wasn't doing whatever that thing is that makes how you know when you're making art.

And after working on it for, you know, quite a few years, I realized what was wrong with it was everything.

But I didn't have a way forward.

I didn't have a better idea.

And I just went back to the basics, like writing like I wrote as a child in a spiral-bound notebook, you know, with a pencil -- not even a pen, a pencil.

And I just kind of scribbled, just to see, you know, what was on my mind, what was in there.

And It's the first time I've had the experience of feeling like I met my characters.

I normally, you know, have an idea what I'm writing about.

Like, when I wrote "An American Marriage," I didn't know what was going to happen, but I knew I wanted to write something about incarceration.

This time, I didn't know what I was writing about.

And I met these two girls, and I was quite surprised to discover that they were living, you know, in the '50s.

And I thought, "Well, clearly, these must be the parents of my real characters, because I don't write the past."

But once I was, say, 150 pages in, I realized this wasn't backstory, but it was the story.

So instead of me kind of saying -- Instead of me saying, like, "What is the story I'm trying to tell?

", I had to say, "What is this story trying to tell me?"

-Kelly: How did you know they were in the '50s when they were girls?

Like, how did you make that leap?

-What they were wearing.

-Kelly: [ Laughs ] -The wildly oppressive undergarments of the '50s.

Like, the underwear -- Oh my God.

Like, whatever you have on right now -- just quietly assess what you have on right now.

[ Laughter ] Whatever you have on right now, somebody in the 1950s thinks you are naked.

[ Laughter ] -Can I ask you a question?

-I'm not telling you what I have on.

-Okay.

[ Laughter ] Okay.

So, we write letters, and you've recently started upping your game to a point that I find threatening because you are painting your own greeting cards.

Let's just table that for a second.

But when you were working on "Kin" and even when you finished it, you were saying, "Oh, they're gonna be disappointed.

The people who I sold this idea to, they're not getting that idea.

The people who read 'American Marriage,' they're gonna be disappointed."

This book is so fabulous.

I mean, this is really the book of the year for me.

And I -- [ Applause ] But I wonder, like, at what point did you wake up to what you had done?

Because you were short-selling yourself through the writing and even when you were done to me, one correspondent.

-I was just so glad to finish it.

And I just felt like they had -- I felt like I was in a restaurant and they had ordered.

Like, they had ordered the pasta and I was serving them the steak.

Like, this was not what they had ordered, what they had asked for, what they had paid for.

Had already spent these people's money.

-Okay, that's a perfect example.

-I had already spent these people's money.

-No.

That's a perfect example.

They ordered and paid for pasta and you gave them steak.

-Well -- [ Laughs ] [ Applause ] -And so I felt like I just turned it in and ran out the room.

I didn't even tell them that it was something different.

I was just like, "Here it is."

And they even told me -- They said that the lady was reading it, and she said she told her assistant, "Pull up that contract.

I don't think this is the thing."

[ Laughter ] But it was what I had.

You know, at the end of the day, it was what I had.

But I did feel -- I mean, I don't want to sound -- You know, I'm a Southern lady, and I'm gonna say I really felt the hand of God on this project, because it was not the book that I planned to write.

It's not a book like anything I've ever written before.

And I was writing it, you know, after 2020, after the pandemic, after the summer of George Floyd, when so much was going on, when I was questioning, "Why are we doing this writing thing?

Like, what is it we're trying to accomplish in this writing thing?"

And I had to kind of surrender to art, surrender to creativity and to creation.

And I felt like it was the only thing I had to offer, and I did think they would be disappointed.

I thought readers would be disappointed.

But I also knew it was all I had.

And I had to give what I had and say, "This is what I have."

And whatever reaction they had, I did have a certain -- I didn't have confidence that it would be a great book, but I had a certain serenity in that I have given all I have.

-Kelly: Mm.

[ Applause ] -I have a related question, which is each of you got a year, or a couple of years down the path of writing a book that you eventually decided, "What's wrong with this book?

Everything."

For all of us -- and I suspect there's quite a few of us in this room who have started something and were like, "It's not quite working It's not quite --" What was the verb you used?

Not quite swinging?

-Novel-ing.

-Novel-ing.

"But, you know, I can't quit now."

How do you know?

How do you say, "It's time to end this," quit, turn the corner?

-It's like a relationship that isn't working out.

-You know.

-And I was writing this novel, but I was also putting the hand mixer in the refrigerator when I had finished using it and thinking, "Well, I'm in my 60s now.

Maybe this is just that time of life when I start putting the hand mixer in the refrigerator."

I was living in a fog.

If any of you have ever been in a relationship that is bad and you know that it's bad, but you can't even let that knowledge come all the way up to the surface, because it's so painful, and it points out all of the time and life you've wasted in this relationship that is actually not going to make it.

So you have to clamp your blinders on and move into the fog so that you can bear to live your life.

I hope I'm not touching on any nerves here.

[ Laughter ] But clearly, speaking from experience.

And when I had that day, that I woke up and I thought, "This book isn't gonna work," and people said to me, "You must have been so devastated."

And it was physically walking out of the fog.

Like, my brain -- that 40% of my brain that just couldn't bear to look and see what I was really doing, came back to me, and I was fully present in my life and in my body.

And I was so glad that book was gone and that I could immediately, with my full brain, which was still pretty good, it turns out, write a book.

-And you can tell the difference when you're writing the thing you're supposed -- It is.

It's so much like love.

Like, you know when you're doing it right.

Like, when the book is right, when the book is booking, it's like all you can think about.

Like, I wake up in the morning wondering what the characters are doing.

-That's right.

-I'm defensive about the characters.

Just like when you tried to talk bad about Bobo, you saw how I got toward her.

[ Laughter ] Because those are the right characters for me to be writing about.

They're not ideas for me.

They feel real.

And when I was writing that other book, I felt like I was moving them around like chess pieces.

-Right.

-I was pushing them over there so they could participate in the plot.

But when I'm writing writing, I feel like they're going over there to be in a plot.

And when you're writing, it does feel like -- You know when you're in love, you feel like, "I'm in love, and it's above me.

I'm doing what I'm doing for reasons I can't quite explain."

And it's not until I finish the book, just like in love, you know, when you're no longer in love, you can look back at that behavior and see why you did what you did.

That's the only way I can really understand some of the plot choices I made is I can look back on it and understand what I was working out in my real life.

But when I'm writing it, it's kind of magical.

It's like a fever dream, in a way.

-Yes.

-Speaking of quitting, are you all following the current debate over DNF -- did not finish the book?

This is a debate raging right now.

-What's the debate?

-Is it okay if you're reading a book and it's lousy to say, "Done"?

-[ Laughing ] -I own a bookstore!

[ Laughter ] I own a bookstore, and everyone thinks I'm having an affair with the UPS man, 'cause he comes to my house five times a day.

And I get so many galleys, I can't even get them all open, much less read.

-How many pages do you get in?

-It depends on the book, because there are plenty of books that in one page, I know.

I know.

And I'm sorry.

It's about being honest with yourself.

You know.

It doesn't mean it's a bad book.

It just means it's not a book for me.

There was a book that I just picked up the other day, a galley.

And, I mean, I read the first page, and I was like, "Wow.

I hate this."

And I stuck it out for maybe 20 pages, because I have a friend who loves this writer.

I just hated it for 20 pages instead of for 1.

No one needs to finish a book they don't like.

[ Applause ] -Wow.

-But I have one little caveat.

A little caveat.

-Yes, please.

-I have found that my own attention span has been shrinking.

I think it's too much screen time and stuff.

And I have been forcing myself to stay a little longer, because I have found my -- I've noticed that I've been reaching the DNF point earlier than I used to.

So I've been giving it about 10 to 15 more pages than I -- -Get a bookstore.

-Okay.

When I get a bookstore, I will.

But I have noticed that just my patience has become a little shorter.

But I do think, like, if you really hate it, you can drop it.

And definitely if it offends you, you can drop it.

-There were two books that came out last year by very respectable authors.

I did not like them, and I read 100 pages of each of them before I bailed, which is a long -- -Oh, yeah.

You can drop at 100.

-And in both cases, I had people come to me later and say, "Those were two of the best books of the year.

They didn't kick in until page 150."

-Ooh, no.

[ Laughter ] -I could care less.

-Kelly: They need a better editor.

[ Laughter ] -But I'm a little curious on this debate.

Who's debating anybody about this?

-I've seen all kinds of chat rooms about this, and I've been thinking the same -- -Are you going to chat rooms again, Mary Louise?

[ Laughter ] -Same thing about... is my attention span... -What other chat rooms are you going to?

-...so fragmented and am I multitasking so much that I would enjoy this book if I forced myself to get to page whatever it is.

Like, would I stick with Proust if I just read page 1?

I don't know.

-But, you know, it's not about the judgment.

It's not about good or bad.

It's about where you're at and what you're liking.

I actually really enjoy reading Henry James.

I know how to read a very slow novel.

But, boy, I am grateful for a book that has me from hello.

I just read a galley of a -- I don't remember the woman's name.

It was a debut.

It's coming out in February.

It's called "Maria, Maria."

Mary Louise, make note.

Look this up.

-Kelly: "Maria, Maria."

-You read the page 1 of that book and nothing could get it out of your hands.

And that feeling of like, "I am with someone who knows what they're doing.

I will follow them anywhere --" that is a great, great thing.

-Heads-up that we will be taking questions.

I have one more question.

But start pondering.

There will be mics at the front.

And before I forget to tell you all, just a reminder, Ann, you have already signed a load of copies of "Whistler," and you all can go buy them all.

-Yes.

And I am wheels up at 8:00.

I really want to go home tonight.

[ Laughter ] Don't stop me.

-And, Tayari, you're signing right after this?

-I'll be here.

I'll sign.

-Okay.

Alright.

That's where to get the books.

Here's my question, before we open it up to everybody here.

It's something that has been on my mind in this moment.

As writers, it can be challenging to come up with plot twists crazier than the ones that we are living through in real life in 2026.

[ Laughter ] And I wonder... is it ever tough?

As writers, particularly writers of fiction... Do you ever feel like, "Oh, man.

Does this feel beside the point when there are so many fights to fight in real life?"

-I can do this.

Do you want me to go first or do you want to go first?

-I'm gonna go first, because you have such great answers.

-Okay.

-I'm gonna... [ Laughter ] -It's true.

I just swamped you.

-Yeah.

-Go ahead.

-Yours is so good.

We're gonna close out with yours.

Hers is so good.

I feel like it's not like I'm -- I don't think that my novels are competing with the world.

My real question was really like, how do my novels help with what's going on in the world?

It seems like with so much going on in the world, what, am I gonna just hand somebody a novel you know, to help with?

I felt like the novel isn't -- I mean, yes, novels build empathy, you know, these kinds of things.

But it seems like the house is on fire and I can't put it out, you know, with a novel.

And I think that really contributed to the times when I wasn't writing, 'cause it felt like I'm playing with, you know, my imaginary friends with my imagination.

It seemed like such a privileged way to respond to the current moment.

And, also, the novel is such a long game.

Like, anything I write now is not gonna see the light of day for five years.

And I felt very paralyzed.

But like I was saying before, I did realize that it is what I have and I must do what I have to the best of my ability.

But I also came to understand that I have to do more.

I don't think that for any of us, one thing is all we have to contribute.

And so I have to do something in addition to my writing.

And that has been what I realized, that it's kind of a little precious of me to think that writing is -- that as long as I'm being an artist, being an artiste, that is my part for what I'm doing for the world.

So I work with an organization where we help babies born to incarcerated moms.

We deliver diapers.

Like, we drive around and deliver diapers like paper boys.

You know, we throw diapers on their caretakers' front steps.

And people say, "Well, that's good, because, you know, maybe that baby you delivered those diapers to, maybe that baby will grow up to cure cancer."

But I say, "That baby doesn't have to cure cancer.

That baby just has to be a baby to deserve a diaper."

[ Applause ] And so I feel that if all of us multitask -- so, you know, writing is the thing that I believe is my gift, so that it is my duty to use my gift to the best of my ability.

But you also have to roll up your sleeves and also do some other kind of work.

And if we combine our gift and our roll-up-our-sleeves work, then that is what we must each do, and that is how we will turn the tide on this thing.

-And do you think, too... [ Applause ] ...in a moment where Americans are finding it so hard to talk to each other about so many things -- you know, you go to dinner at somebody's house and, you know, the number of areas in which people are divided these days are myriad.

And yet you all have got a room like this, and they all want to talk about your book.

-Yeah.

-Like that the storytelling is the answer.

If you all have questions, we're gonna come to them right after this, so make your way towards me.

-I'm gonna answer this question 'cause I have two answers, and I'm going to do it fast.

One, every Sunday morning, I talk on the phone with my friend Kate DiCamillo.

You should be jealous.

And we a couple of years ago were having that conversation -- "How in the world?"

I mean, I was saying, "It doesn't make any sense, Why am I writing a novel?"

And she said, "Why don't you call your friend Renée Fleming and tell her not to sing?"

And I think of that every time.

Kate said, "Just call her and tell her it's pointless to keep singing."

"Oh, oh!"

So there's that.

That really, really helped me balance.

But the other thing is I just reread Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," which I haven't read since I was 25 years old.

I have this theory that Joan Didion's career was weirdly obliterated by "The Year of Magical Thinking."

And people don't go back and read her early work, and I wanted to make it -- We make these videos at my bookstore about books that you might not have read before.

And I thought, "I'm gonna reread 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem,'" a group of essays -- The book was published in 1968.

And in the introduction, she says that exact thing -- "How can I keep writing?

It is so pointless.

The world is on fire.

Why am I doing this thing?"

And what you realize is to be alive is to be in a burning world, and you have to keep doing what you can do -- the Pampers on the porch, buying books for kids, whatever it is you're doing, and, also, using the talent that you came into the world with.

Okay.

-Amen.

[ Applause ] -Tell them about the beer bottle.

-Oh, but no.

We've got to answer the question.

-You have to tell them about the beer bottle.

-Okay.

She wants me to say about the beer -- Okay.

So, my whole life is that I feel like I am sitting in a bar, drinking a beer, and everyone around me is having fights and slugging each other in the face.

And I look in it, and I think, "Not my fight.

That's not my fight, that's not my fight, that's not my fight."

And then I look over, and I think, "Oh, Christ.

That is my fight."

And, then, I get up, and I break the beer bottle, and I go in.

And so that's part of it.

You know what your fight is.

You know that there are things -- You can't solve everything.

You can't solve the problems.

But there are fights you have to engage in.

-Pick your fights, people.

Alright.

[ Applause ] -Good one.

-Thank you very much.

Yeah.

-[ Laughs ] -I'm gonna get to as many of y'all as I can, with the absolute confidence that we're not gonna make it through everybody who's even already standing.

But if you can keep your questions short, and if you want to direct it at one author or the other, that helps.

Yes, ma'am?

-Woman: This is a question for Ann, although I think you both could answer it with enough time.

I'm a fellow Sarah Lawrence alum, so every time you mention "Bronxville" and "Whistler," I had a good chuckle.

And it got me thinking, the theme of place and home is such a subtle one throughout the novel.

How do you think about place and place things when you're writing?

-I like to set books in places that I know, but not too well.

For example, I would never be able to set a book in Nashville, because I'm too familiar.

And I like it if I've been there, but not for a while, or I have a really good friend who lives there that I can call and say, "How do you drive to that place?

", or, "What train would you take?"

Thank you.

-Woman: I think my mom gave me a copy of "Bel Canto" when I was 17, and that was my first introduction to your work.

And, then, years later, I gave my mom my copy of "An American Marriage."

And so I'm wondering how y'all think about us as readers.

Do we just exist in the ether?

Do you think about the relationships that we share with each other and with you and with your books?

-I think about readers.

I don't think about readers when I'm writing, because I feel like it would frees me up to think about what someone else would think when I'm writing.

But once the book is in the world, every book, I have met one person that I felt like, "Oh, this was her book," or, "This was his book."

And that is actually when I feel like the travel and stuff, I kind of close it down.

And it's usually someone who says, like, this book, like with my book "Silver Sparrow," which is about men who have secret families.

I met a woman who said when her father died, they found out he had a secret family, and she bought the book for all the other kids.

[ Laughter ] And they had a book club.

-Oh, my God.

-And it was a way for them to talk about it.

And I thought, "Oh, this was their book."

And, then, I was able to, like, kind of close the book on that book.

-That's what I think, too.

-Woman: Lovely.

[ Laughter ] -I mean, that's perfect.

That's perfect.

-Hi.

-Woman: Thank you for being here.

And I don't mean that in a perfunctory way, because I love the Library of Congress.

I've come to this many, many years, and I want you all to know there are hundreds of people outside that waited that couldn't get in.

But happily, I think this is being filmed.

I have been in a book club -- Well, I'm in four of them.

But the one I've been in the longest has been 33 years continuously.

And I know that we read a variety.

We read fiction.

We read nonfiction.

We read everything -- historical fiction.

And my question is about book clubs.

And I wanted to tell Ann that in those 33 years, we've read three of your books.

And that hasn't happened with anybody else.

And you're on our list for 2027 to read "Whistler."

-Thank you.

-Woman: But my question is about book clubs.

And I know that you own your bookstore.

What do you say to people to keep a book club going?

And I wanted to ask if you've ever been in a book club or more than one yourself and if you can think of any creative things to keep the book clubs going and not turning into just a glass of wine and a little bit of chitchat.

Well, ours is so serious, that we kicked a person out of our book club.

-I have never been in a book club.

I have gone to so many people's book clubs.

Book clubs, like relationships, meet different needs for different people.

Some of them are very serious, and some of them are just a beard so you can say, "I'm going to book club," and you can get together with your friends.

And all of those things are okay.

Don't meet any of them with judgment.

[ Applause ] And, you know, in the '70s, they used to have women's empowerment groups.

And I feel like the book club is now the women's empowerment group.

Let it be whatever it is.

-Are you in a book club, Tayari?

-Are you?

-Yeah.

Two.

-How do you keep it going?

-Two.

-Arguing.

[ Laughter ] -There you go.

-Arguing.

-We never agree on anything.

-Patchett: Wow.

-My favorite book is somebody else's they hate it.

Keeps it interesting.

-Woman: I wanted to say one more thing.

I know I'm not allowed.

But there's been so much laughter and joy in this room.

I come every year.

-Thank you.

-Woman: And I've never been in a room where there has been so much fun and laughter.

And thank you.

-Thank you, thank you.

-Woman: My question is actually for Ann, but I will be reading "Kin."

I'm here with my 58-year-old cradle baby sister, and so I'm excited to do that.

But she and I both grew up south of Sheridan, Wyoming.

and I just have this burning question.

-Oh, wow.

Yeah.

-Woman: Is the story about "Whistler" based on a true story?

-No.

-Woman: Or how did you come up with that?

-It is absolutely not based on a true story, but I have spent a lot of time in Sheridan, Wyoming.

And what a beautiful place it is.

It's almost, like, too much to get into, but I did this enormous amount of research for the first book that I threw away about falling off a horse.

And my husband's a doctor, and my neighbor's a doctor, and I'm like, "Okay.

You would be dead on the fifth day, but how would you be on the third day?

What would have to happen?"

[ Laughter ] You know, and my husband was like, "Is it raining?"

And I said, "Oh.

That's such an interesting question, because it's dehydration."

And, then, I went and talked to people about horses.

It doesn't have anything to do with anything.

-Woman: Okay.

Thank you.

-Okay.

Thank you.

-Last question.

-Woman: Okay.

Thank you.

I'm an emerging writer, and my question is for anybody, and it's about relationships between characters.

When they are so nuanced and complex, how do you map that out as you're writing it?

-Your ball.

[ Laughter ] -I think that you grow characters between -- you grow relationships between characters just like you do people in real life.

They grow as you continue to write them.

So when you first started, you don't know the people yet.

You're just meeting them, just like they're -- And so with every draft, you've learned more about them, and you just grow it.

It takes time.

So when you're starting and the characters, they're gonna be kind of robotic, 'cause you've just met them.

And every time, you just keep layering and keep layering it.

So don't be discouraged because they don't start off as true besties yet or as a tight mother-and-daughter bond, 'cause you just met them.

And you just go back through and add and add and add.

So the information, by the time you've written your first 100 pages, you know so much more about them.

Then go back to the beginning and layer it and add in the new stuff you've learned.

-Woman: Thank you.

-Kelly: Do you want to add to that?

-I would just say it's just like having a friend.

And we meet, and we -- I don't know where we met.

We met at a writers festival or something, I don't know.

But we knew each other for a long time, and we didn't write to each other.

But, then, we met again, and we wrote to each other.

-And then I wrote to her and she wrote back, "Is this where we are now?

Pen and paper."

[ Laughter ] But it's like yes, we're pen pals.

-You know, you get to know people slowly over time, and you gather details.

And if you forget, you ask again.

Do you have siblings?

You know, when were you born?

Where did you grow up?

Where did you go to school?

It doesn't happen in one day, but you just slowly learn things about people.

-And you have fun with it.

-Exactly.

-Like, you're not frustrated that you don't know a stranger well, and so don't be frustrated you don't know your characters well.

Have fun with it.

That's how you do it.

-Kelly: Hearts with strings.

Full circle.

-There you go.

-Woman: Thank you.

-Kelly: Thank you.

-Aw.

This lady got cut off.

[ Applause ] -We got to go, 'cause I got an appointment.

-Aw.

-Kelly: I'm so sorry.

We can't get to everybody.

Thank you, thank you.

-Woman: Thank you.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Thank you.

-Thank you, thank you.

-All of you, thank you.

Happy book festival, Ann Patchett, Tayari Jones.

-Mary Louise Kelly!

[ Laughs ] [ Cheers and applause ] Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

-Ann, wave at everybody.

Wave, Ann.

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