Karen Russell


Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree.

Early life

After graduating from Coral Gables Senior High School in Miami in 1999, Russell received a B.A. in Spanish from Northwestern University in 2003. She graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University in 2006. A Miami native, as of 2019 she lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, editor Tony Perez, and their son Oscar.
Her brother, Kent Russell, is also a writer.

Career

Russell's stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and '.
She was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at a November 2009 ceremony for her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.
Her second book and first novel, Swamplandia!, about a family of alligator wrestlers and their shabby amusement park in the Everglades, was long-listed for the Orange Prize 2011. It was also included in the New York Times' "10 Best Books of 2011" and won the New York Public Library's 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award. Swamplandia! was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; However, none of the three finalists received enough votes, and no prize was awarded.
Russell's second collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, was published by Vintage Contemporaries in February 2013. Her third short story collection, Orange World and Other Stories, was released in May 2019.
Russell won the Bard Fiction Prize in 2011 for her book St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Her short story "The Hox River Window," published in ', won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction. She is the recipient of the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize and was awarded a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin for Spring 2012. "Reeling for the Empire" won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette of 2012. In 2013, Russell received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant."
In 2010 Russell spent time as a visiting writer at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She later served as an artist in residence at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. In Fall 2013, Russell was a distinguished guest teacher of creative writing in the MFA program at Rutgers University-Camden.
Russell has been the Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University’s MFA program since 2017.

Short fiction

Short Stories

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