Kelly Link

Kelly Link (born July 19, 1969) is an American editor and writer. Mainly known as an author of short stories, she published her first novel The Book of Love in 2024. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and literary fiction. Among other honors, she has won a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, and a World Fantasy Award for her fiction, and she was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur "Genius" Grant.

Biography
Link is a graduate of Columbia University in New York and the MFA program of UNC Greensboro. In 1995, she attended the Clarion East Writing Workshop.

Link and husband Gavin Grant manage Small Beer Press, based in Northampton, Massachusetts. The couple's imprint of Small Beer Press for intermediate readers is called Big Mouth House. They also co-edited St. Martin's Press's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series with Ellen Datlow for five years, ending in 2008. (The couple inherited the "fantasy" side from Terri Windling in 2004.) In 2019, Link and Grant opened Book Moon, a new and used bookstore in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Link also co-edits the literary magazine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and was the slush reader for Sci Fiction, edited by Datlow.

Link taught at Lenoir–Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, with the Visiting Writers Series for spring semester 2006. She has taught or visited at a number of schools and workshops including:


 * Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York;
 * Brookdale Community College of Lincroft, New Jersey;
 * the Imagination Workshop at Cleveland State University;
 * New England Institute of Art & Communications, Brookline, Massachusetts;
 * Clarion East at Michigan State University, Lansing;
 * Clarion West in Seattle, Washington; and
 * Smith College, near her home in Northampton.

She has participated in the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers.

Awards

 * 2017: World Fantasy Award for contributions to the genre (nominee)
 * 2018: MacArthur Fellowship
 * 2023: Honorary degree from Smith College.

Books

 * Stranger Things Happen: 2001 Salon Book of the Year, The Village Voice favorite (available here as a free download, under a Creative Commons license)
 * Magic for Beginners: 2006 Locus Award for Best Short Story Collection
 * Pretty Monsters: 2008 World Fantasy and Locus Award finalist.
 * Get in Trouble: 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist.
 * White Cat, Black Dog: 2023 Kirkus Prize Finalist.
 * The Book of Love: 2024

Selected stories (award winners)

 * "The Game of Smash and Recovery": 2016 Theodore Sturgeon Award
 * "The Summer People": 2011 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette, 2013 The O. Henry Prize Stories
 * "Pretty Monsters": 2009 Locus Award for Best Novella
 * "Magic for Beginners": 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novella
 * "The Faery Handbag": 2005 Hugo and Nebula Award for Best Novelette, Locus Award winner
 * "Stone Animals": 2005 The Best American Short Stories
 * "Louise's Ghost": 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
 * "The Specialist's Hat": 1999 World Fantasy Award
 * "Travels with the Snow Queen": 1997 James Tiptree, Jr. Award

As author

 * 4 Stories (chapbook), Small Beer Press, 2000
 * Stranger Things Happen, Small Beer Press, 2001
 * Magic for Beginners, Small Beer Press, 2005 (reprinted by Harcourt, 2005)
 * Catskin: a swaddled zine, Jelly Ink Press, date unknown
 * Pretty Monsters: Stories, Viking Juvenile, 2008
 * The Wrong Grave, 2009
 * Get in Trouble: Stories, Random House, 2015
 * White Cat, Black Dog: Stories, Random House, 2023
 * The Book of Love, Random House, 2024

As editor

 * Trampoline Small Beer Press, 2003
 * The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volume 17– (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant) St. Martin's Press, 2004–2008

In addition, Link and Grant have edited a semiannual small press fantasy magazine: Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (or LCRW) since 1997. An anthology, The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, was published by Del Rey Books in 2007.