Swamplandia! (Russell) - Author Bio

About the Author
• Birth—July 10, 1981
• Where—Miami, Florida, USA
• Education—B.A., Northwestern University
   M.F.A. Columbia University
• Awards & Recognition—New Yorker's 20 Under 40;
   Granta's Best Young American Novelists; National Book
   Foundation's 5 Under 35; Mary Ellen von der Heyden
   Berlin Prize
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Karen Russell attended Northwestern University, where she earned her B.A. in 2003. She is a 2006 graduate of the Columbia University MFA program.

She was Margaret Bundy Scott Visiting Professor of English at Williams College.

Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope.

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, first novel Swamplandia! (2011), about a shabby amusement park set in the Everglades, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize.

In 2013, she released another short story collection to excellent reviews: Vampires in the Lemon Grove.

She is the recipient of the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize and was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin for Spring 2012. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)