Patty Somlo

Patty Somlo was born in Cleveland, Ohio. The granddaughter of immigrants, Somlo grew up in a military family that moved constantly. Her nomadic childhood has fueled her passion for writing about immigrants, refugees, the homeless and the dispossessed. She spent ten years as a reporter before deciding to concentrate on short fiction and creative nonfiction. Her focus as a journalist on social issues reporting continues to inform her fiction. She has published three short story collections, From Here to There and Other Stories (Paraguas Books, 2010), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil, 2016), a Finalist in the 2016 International Book Awards, the 2016 Best Book Awards and the 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards, and Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing, 2018), and a memoir, Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing, 2016), which won Honorable Mention in the 2016/2017 Reader Views Literary Awards. She won Honorable Mention in Fiction in the 2017 Women's National Book Association National Writing Contest and was a Finalist in the Adelaide Voices Literary Award for Short Story, She has received four Pushcart Prize nominations, been nominated for Best of the Net and storySouth’s Million Writers Award, and had an essay selected as a Notable Essay of 2013 for Best American Essays 2014. www.pattysomlo.com; Follow on Twitter: @PattySomlo.