A graduate of St. Michael’s College, Dave Patterson holds an MA from the Bread Loaf School of English and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast  program. While at Bread Loaf, Patterson won the school’s short story contest for a story entitled “A Small Offering.” His short fiction has appeared in Slice Magazine, The Onion River Review, Hot Metal Bridge, The Drunken Odyssey, Storyacious, Clare Literary Journal, The Apple Valley Review and Blinders Literary Journal, among other literary magazines. He is currently at work on his second novel.

As a journalist and beer critic, Patterson’s work has appeared in the Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Activity Maine and Maine Brew Guides, among other publications. His Beer Muse column appeared weekly in Maine Today from 2014 to 2018.

In addition to writing, Dave is also a musician and songwriter. He spent 10 years playing in the Portland-based band, This Way. In 2011 the band won a Portland Phoenix Award for Best Americana Band. His current music projects are The High Spirits and Peddle Steal.

Books by Dave Patterson

Soon the Light Will Be Perfect

by Dave Patterson - Fiction

A 12-year-old boy lives with his family in a small, poverty-stricken town in Vermont. His father works at a manufacturing plant, his mother is a homemaker, and his 15-year-old brother is about to enter high school. His family has gained enough financial stability to move out of the nearby trailer park, and as conflict rages abroad, his father’s job at a weapons manufacturing plant appears safe. But then his mother is diagnosed with cancer, and everything changes. As the family clings to the traditions of their hard-line Catholicism, he meets Taylor, a perceptive, beguiling girl from the trailer park, who has been forced to grow up too fast. Taylor represents everything his life isn’t, and their fledgling connection develops as his mother’s health deteriorates.