Karen Russell

Karen Russell’s debut novel Swamplandia! published in 2011, has received wide critical acclaim. In 2012 it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and a recipient of The New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. The New Yorker named Russell one of the “20 Under 40” fiction writers, and The New York Times heralded Swamplandia! as one of the 10 Best Books of 2011. The National Book Foundation named Russell "5 Under 35" in November 2009 after the publication of her debut book of short stories St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, released in 2006. Russell is the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize and is a spring 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her stories have been featured in Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American and Zoetrope.