Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Karen Russell (b. 1981), a native of Miami, has been featured in both The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and New York magazine's list of twenty-five people to watch under the age of twenty-six. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program and is the 2005 recipient of the Transatlantic Review/Henfield Foundation Award; her fiction has recently appeared in Conjunctions, Granta, Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The New Yorker.
Her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was published in September 2006, for which she was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at a November 2009 ceremony. Swamplandia (Feb 2011) is her first novel.
About This Biography
This biography was last updated on 05/08/2013. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
In two separate interviews Karen Russell talks about her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!
A Conversation with
Karen Russell about her first novel, Swamplandia!
Swamplandia! and your story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, are both set in a sort of enchanted, Lewis Carroll-like version of North America. What draws you to these worlds and how do you create them?
Well, I think I owe a big debt to Lewis Carroll himself, probably, and other folks who I read as a kid like Ray Bradbury and Peter S. Beagle and Stephen King and Madeleine L'Engle. My favorite books were always the ones where I felt like an alternate world had been created in some star cradle by the author and, in an amazing feat of compression, shrunken down into a 200-page book (or, in the case of Ray Bradbury, a three page story about a country uncle with green wings). I think I wanted to create strange but familiar snow-globe worlds almost as soon as I started reading these books
I also think I'm drawn to imaginary places because it's an architecture that any reading consciousness can enter - as a kid I ...
Chris Adrian was born in Washington, D.C. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he is currently a medical student in Virginia. Part of this novel first appeared in The New Yorker under the title 'Every Night ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Swamplandia!
Try:
A Better Angel
by Chris Adrian
Tiffany Baker’s Recipe For A Writing Life
A handful of islands: Belvedere , Aquidneck, Balboa, Manhattan, Corsica, Maui, the UK
Three small children: Two girls and a boy, plump in the cheeks and knees. Strong-willed ...
If you enjoyed:
Vampires in the Lemon Grove
Try:
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
by Tiffany Baker
We recommend 29 similar authors
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
An utterly engrossing, compulsive page-turner set in 1920s Ceylon.
An irresistible love story for fans of Beautiful Ruins and Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
About the book
Blood at the Root
"A gripping, timely, and important examination of American racism."
- PW Starred Review
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
