凯利·林克

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. Many of her stories have been described as slipstream or magical realism, combining science fiction, fantasy, horror, and literary fiction. She has won a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, and three World Fantasy Awards. She was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur Fellowship.

Early life and education

Kelly Link was born in Miami, Florida. Her father was a minister who later became a psychologist. Her family moved often during her childhood, living in Tennessee, Philadelphia, Miami again, and finally North Carolina when Link was in high school. As a teenager, she wrote poetry and worked on her school’s literary magazine.

She graduated from Columbia University in 1991. She spent her junior year of college studying abroad at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Link later received her MFA in writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

In 1995, she attended the Clarion East Writing Workshop.

Career

She and her husband, Gavin Grant, founded Small Beer Press, a publisher based in Northampton, Massachusetts. The company focused on publishing books of "short stories that straddle the line between genre and literary fiction." Small Beer Press has an imprint for intermediate readers called Big Mouth House.

As Link was sending out her own first collection of stories to big publishing houses, she would hear from editors and agents who were interested in her work, but weren't sure how to market it. Link and Grant decided to publish the book themselves and Stranger Things Happen was released by Small Beer Press in 2001.

Link and Grant co-edit the literary zine Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, published by Small Beer Press. 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. Link was previously the slush reader for Sci Fiction.

Her fifth short story collection, Get in Trouble, was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

In 2019, Link and Grant opened Book Moon, an independent bookstore in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Link taught at Lenoir–Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, with the Visiting Writers Series during the 2005-2006 semester. She has taught at a number of schools and workshops including Bard College, Cleveland State University, the Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She previously taught at Smith College, where she was the Elizabeth Drew Professor of English Language and Literature.

In 2018, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. She received an honorary degree from Smith College in 2023.

In 2024, Random House published Link's first novel, The Book of Love. In his review for NPR, Gabino Iglesias wrote, "For years, fans of Kelly Link, one of the finest purveyors of contemporary short fiction, have wondered what the author would be able to do with a full novel...this novel is proof that Link can be as strange, entertaining, and witty in novel form as she is when writing short stories." The book won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction.