Karen Russell
American novelist and short story writer
Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009, the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 Under 35 honoree. She is also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant".
Early life and education
Russell was born in Miami, Florida, on July 10, 1981. Her brother, Kent Russell, is also a writer.
In 1999, she graduated from Coral Gables Senior High School in Coral Gables, Florida. She received a BA in Spanish and English from Northwestern University in 2003 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2006.
Career
Russell's 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 the November 2009 ceremony for her first short story collection, St.
“Karen Russell” enters the record as american novelist and short story writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Karen, Russell and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3812975. VIAF identifies the subject as 28282483. The Library of Congress control number is n2006024155. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 2012, 2009 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Karen Russell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.