Ann Petry (1908-1997), novelist and writer of short stories and books for young people, was one of America's most distinguished authors. Petry began by studying pharmacy, and in 1934 received her Ph.G. from the Connecticut College of Pharmacy. She worked as a licenced pharmacist in Saybrook and in Old Lyme, and during these years wrote several short stories.

When she married George David Petry in 1938, the course of her life changed. They lived in New York City, and Ann went to work for the Amsterdam News in Harlem. By 1941, she was covering general news stories and editing the women's pages of the People's Voice, also in Harlem. Her first published story appeared in 1943 in the Crisis, a magazine published by the NAACP.

She then began on her first novel, The Street, which was published in 1946 and for which she received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. Petry wrote two more novels, The Country Place and The Narrows, and numerous short stories, articles and children's books.