Meet the Honorees
Ann Patchett
Carl Sandburg Literary Award Honoree
Ann Patchett is the author of nine novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, and Tom Lake. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written four books of nonfiction–Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy, What Now?, an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays examining the theme of commitment, and These Precious Days, essays on home, family, friendship, and writing. In 2019, she published her first children’s book, Lambslide, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, followed by Escape Goat in 2020.
Read More
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Humanities Medal, England’s Women’s Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Book Sense Book of the Year, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Bookseller’s Association’s Most Engaging Author Award, and the Women’s National Book Association’s Award. Her novel, The Dutch House, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
In November, 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with her business partner Karen Hayes. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores on NPR, The Colbert Report (including the series finale), Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, The Martha Stewart Show, and The CBS Early Show, among many others. Along with James Patterson, she was the honorary chair of World Book Night. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Ann Patchett lives in Nashville with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky. Click here to subscribe to her blog, Notes from Ann, featuring book recommendations, exclusive commentary, articles, and more. Follow along with Parnassus Books on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the bookstore blog, Musing.
Cristina Henríquez
21st Century Award Honoree
Cristina Henríquez is the author of The Great Divide, The Book of Unknown Americans, The World In Half, and Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories. She has been longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple, The Oxford American, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Illinois.
Chance the Rapper
Arts Award Honoree
Hailed as “a generational voice” by GQ and “an outstanding role model” by President Barack Obama, multi-Grammy award winner Chance the Rapper has built a multi-faceted career, redefining what it means to be an independent artist. Chance has never signed a record deal—opting instead to make his music available for free. Born and raised in Chicago, Chance made history in 2017 when he became the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming-only mixtape—collecting a trio of statues for “Best New Artist,” “Best Rap Performance” and “Best Rap Album” for his now-iconic album Coloring Book.
Read More
Chance’s upcoming album Star Line Gallery intertwines the worlds of art, music and cinematography through interdisciplinary collaborations with fine artists from The Continent and The Diaspora. Redefining the notion of ‘album art’ and creating compelling conversations and meditations on Black life, these groundbreaking works (“Child of God,” “A Bar About A Bar,” “The Highs & The Lows” and “YAH Know”) have premiered at art institutions around the world including Art Basel, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), The Art Institute of Chicago, and Los Angeles’ Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
Alongside his music, Chance’s expanding career also includes film and television credits. In 2021, he became the first artist to independently distribute a film through AMC Theatres via his Magnificent Coloring World concert film, written, produced, edited and distributed by Chance himself. His portrayal of the character Herbert on the HBO Max series Southside earned Chance a 2023 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Performance. Chance made his highly-anticipated debut as a coach on Season 23 of The Voice in 2023, and returned as a coach for Season 25 in 2024.
Coming from a long line of activists and community organizers, Chance was raised with a strong sense of purpose and a dedication to giving back. Through his nonprofit organization SocialWorks, he aims to inspire and empower youth through arts, education and civic engagement. Since 2016, SocialWorks has contributed $10M to the Chicagoland community, impacting approximately 10k students annually. Chance recently organized a self-funded free festival in Accra, Ghana that drew upwards of 52,000 attendees. The “Black Star Line Festival” was founded with a mission to foster cultural exchange between Black people of The Continent and the global Diaspora.
Learn About the Awards
Check out previous award honorees from Toni Morrison to Stephen Sondheim to Rebecca Makkai.