Patricia Griffith is a founding member of PEN/Faulkner and a former president of the Board. She is a novelist and playwright. Two of her stories were included in the O. Henry Prize Stories. Her story “Nights at O’Rear’s,” first published in Harper’s, was made into a movie by Robert Mandel, head of the American Film Institute, and shown at the New York Film Festival, the Kennedy Center, and elsewhere. Her papers are being collected at Texas State University. She is completing a novel based on a racial killing in Texas in the 30s witnessed by a member of her family. She taught writing at George Washington University.