Patricia Hampl is an American memoirist, writer, and educator born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1946. She has established herself as a significant figure in contemporary American letters, particularly through her work in memoir and creative nonfiction. Hampl taught in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, where she worked with emerging writers. She is one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center, an organization dedicated to supporting writers and the literary community.