Karen Russell | |
|---|---|
 Russell in 2011 | |
| Born | (1981-07-10)July 10, 1981 (age 44) Miami, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | Northwestern University (BA) Columbia University (MFA) |
| Notable awards | MacArthur fellowship, 5 under 35 honoree |
| Website | |
| karenrussellauthor | |
Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Herdebut novel,Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 theNational Book Foundation named Russell a5 Under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of aMacArthur Foundation"Genius Grant" in 2013.
Russell was born inMiami, Florida, on July 10, 1981. Her brother,Kent Russell, is also a writer.
In 1999, she graduated fromCoral Gables Senior High School inCoral Gables, Florida. She received aBA inSpanish fromNorthwestern University in 2003 and anMFA fromColumbia University in 2006.[1]
Russell's stories have been featured inThe Best American Short Stories,Conjunctions,Granta,The New Yorker,Oxford American, andZoetrope.[2]
She was named aNational Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at the November 2009 ceremony[3] for her first short story collection,St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, for which Russell won the Bard Fiction Prize in 2011.[4]
Russell's second book andfirst novel,Swamplandia!, about a family of alligator wrestlers and their shabby amusement park in the Everglades, was long-listed for the 2011Orange Prize.[5] The novel was also included inThe New York Times' "10 Best Books of 2011"[6] and won the New York Public Library's 2012Young Lions Fiction Award.[7]Swamplandia! was a finalist for the 2012Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; however, none of the three finalists received enough votes, and no prize was awarded.[8]
Russell's second collection of short stories,Vampires in the Lemon Grove, was published byVintage Contemporaries in February 2013. Her third short story collection,Orange World and Other Stories, was released in May 2019.
Her short story "The Hox River Window," published inZoetrope: All-Story, won the 2012National Magazine Award for fiction.[9] She is the recipient of the Mary Ellen von der HeydenBerlin Prize and was awarded a fellowship at theAmerican Academy in Berlin for Spring 2012.[10] "Reeling for the Empire" won theShirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette of 2012. In 2013, Russell received aMacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant."[11]
In 2010, Russell was a visiting writer at theIowa Writers' Workshop.[12] She later served as an artist in residence atYaddo inSaratoga Springs, NY.[13] In Fall 2013, Russell was a distinguished guest teacher of creative writing in the MFA program atRutgers University-Camden.[14]
Russell held the Endowed Chair in Creative Writing atTexas State University’s MFA program from 2017 through 2020.[15]
In March 2025, her second novelThe Antidote was released.[16] It was shortlisted for the 2025National Book Award for Fiction[17] and is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction.[18]
AMiami native, she resides inPortland, Oregon, with her husband, editor Tony Perez, and two children.[19][20]
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Novellas
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| A family restaurant | 2011 | Russell, Karen (Fall 2011). "A family restaurant".Conjunctions.57. | Russell, Karen (2013). "A family restaurant". In Henderson, Bill (ed.).The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013.Pushcart Press. pp. 183–206. |
| Sleep donation : a novella | 2014 | Sleep donation : a novella. Atavist Books. 2014. | |
| The Bog Girl | 2016 | Russell, Karen (June 20, 2016)."The Bog Girl".The New Yorker. Vol. 92, no. 18. pp. 60–69. |
