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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.^[3][4] Many of her stories have been described as slipstream or magical realism, combining science fiction, fantasy, horror, and literary fiction.^[5][6] She has won a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, and three World Fantasy Awards.^[7] She was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur Fellowship.^[8]

Link is a graduate of Columbia University and of the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.^[6] In 1995, she attended the Clarion East Writing Workshop.^[9]

She and her husband, Gavin Grant, manage Small Beer Press, a publisher based in Northampton, Massachusetts.^[10] Small Beer Press has an imprint for intermediate readers called Big Mouth House.^[11] Link and Grant co-edit the literary zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, published by Small Beer Press.^[12] 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.^[13] Link was previously the slush reader for Sci Fiction.^[14]

In 2019, Link and Grant opened Book Moon, an independent bookstore in Easthampton, Massachusetts.^[15]

Link taught at Lenoir–Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, with the Visiting Writers Series during the 2005-2006 semester.^[16] She has taught at a number of schools and workshops including Bard College,^[17] Cleveland State University,^[18] the Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University,^[9] University of Massachusetts Amherst,^[19] and Clarion West Writers Workshop.^[20]

In 2018, she received a MacArthur Fellowship.^[21] She is a professor at Smith College, where she is the Elizabeth Drew Professor of English Language and Literature.^[22] She received an honorary degree from Smith College in 2023.^[23]

In 2024, Random House published Link’s first novel, The Book of Love.^{[24][25][26][27]}

• Stranger Things Happen. Small Beer Press. 2001. ISBN 9781931520003.
• Magic for Beginners. Small Beer Press. 2005. ISBN 9780812986518.
• Pretty Monsters. Viking Books for Young Readers. 2008. ISBN 9781101215425.
• The Wrong Grave. Text Publishing. 2009. ISBN 9781921520730.
• Get in Trouble. Random House. 2016. ISBN 9780812986495.
• White Cat, Black Dog: Stories. Random House. 2023. ISBN 9780593449950.
• The Book of Love. Random House. 2024. ISBN 9780812986501.

• “The Game of Smash and Recovery”
• “The Summer People”
• “Pretty Monsters”
• “Magic for Beginners“
• “The Faery Handbag“
• “Stone Animals”
• “Louise’s Ghost”
• “The Specialist’s Hat”
• “Travels with the Snow Queen”

• Trampoline (Small Beer Press, 2003)
• The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Volumes 17 – 21 (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant, St Martin’s Griffin, 2004 – 2008)
• Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (with Gavin J. Grant, Candlewick Press, 2011)
• Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales (with Gavin J. Grant, Candlewick Press, 2014)
• The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (with Gavin J. Grant, Del Rey Books, 2007)

• Official website
• Small Beer Press
• Kelly Link at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database