Karen Russell is a novelist and short story writer and was one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” in 2010. Her debut novel Swamplandia is set in Ten Thousand Islands off the southwest coast of Florida and tells the story of the Bigtrees, a family of alligator wrestlers who live in a theme park. Praised by Carl Hiaasen as “both shimmering and stark,” Russell’s first novel was subsequently adapted into a series on HBO. A recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” Russell is also the author of the story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves as well as the recent Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Russell’s stories have appeared in Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and The New Yorker, one of which she described as, “Hitchcock meets the swamp.”