Patrick Ryan was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up on Merritt Island, Florida. He’s a graduate of Florida State University and Bowling Green State University’s Creative Writing Program in Ohio. For most of the 1990s, he lived in Richmond, Virginia, where he taught composition and literature at both the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University, and where he also tended bar. In 1999, he moved to New York City, where he worked a variety of jobs and spent six years as a word-processor in a giant corporate law firm.

Patrick’s first book, a collection of linked short stories called Send Me, was published by the Dial Press in 2006 and was chosen for Barnes and Noble’s Discovery Series. He then published three books for young adults: Saints of Augustine (HarperTeen, 2007), In Mike We Trust (HarperTeen, 2009), and Gemini Bites (Scholastic Press, 2011). His second collection of short stories, The Dream Life of Astronauts, was published by the Dial Press in 2016 and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch,  LitHub, Refinery 29, and Electric Literature. The collection was also long-listed for The Story Prize.

His novel, Buckeye, was published by Random House in September of 2025 and became a New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna pick, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Amazon’s Best Book of 2025, an Indy Next List pick, a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection, a Barnes & Noble National Book Club Selection, and a finalist for Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year. Buckeye is published by Bloomsbury in the UK and currently has fourteen international publishers. It’s been longlisted for the 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Award.

The former associate editor of Granta, Patrick is the editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine One Story. He lives in Manhattan.

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AGENT: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, 143 W. 27th Street, New York, NY 10001
connect@aragi.net

PUBLICIST: Erin Richards, Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
erichards@penguinrandomhouse.com

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: Kwabena Dinizulu, Penguin Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
kdinizulu@penguinrandomhouse.com

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