Patricia Hampl

professor, English, University of Minnesota

Patricia Hampls most recent book is *The Florists Daughter*, winner of numerous best and year end awards, including the *New York Times *100 Notable Books of the Year and the 2008 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. *Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime*, published in 2006 and now in paperback, was also one of the *Times* Notable Books; a portion was chosen for The Best Spiritual Writing 2005. Patricia Hampl first won recognition for *A Romantic Education*, her memoir about her Czech heritage, awarded a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. This book and subsequent works have established her as an influential figure in the rise of autobiographical writing in the past 25 years.