Patrick Shaffner

Staff member since: 2017

As Program Officer, Patrick Shaffner coordinates literature and language programs including the Young Writers’ Workshops, Student Reader Day, and the Southern Festival of Books.

Born and raised in Indiana, Patrick graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia with majors in Anthropology and Literary and Cultural Studies. He helped establish 826CHI, a nonprofit creative writing and tutoring lab for youth in Chicago and continued working with young authors in Atlanta at the Wrens Nest and in Nashville through the Reading Academy at Vanderbilt. In Tennessee he has also designed posters through an internship at Hatch Show Print, worked the websites of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and performed and taught improv theater at the Third Coast Comedy Club.