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. 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.

Biography Link is a graduate of Columbia University and of the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

She and her husband, Gavin Grant, manage Small Beer Press, a publisher based in Northampton, Massachusetts. Small Beer Press has an imprint for intermediate readers called Big Mouth House. 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.

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, and Clarion West Writers Workshop.

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

In 2024, Random House published Link's first novel, The Book of Love.

Awards

Work Year & Award Category Result Ref."Travels with the Snow Queen"1997 Otherwise Award Stranger Things Happen2001 Salon.com Book AwardFiction 2002 World Fantasy AwardCollection 2002 Locus AwardCollection "Lull"2003 Locus AwardNovelette The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (17th Annual Collection) (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant)2004 Bram Stoker AwardAnthology 2005 Locus AwardAnthology 2005 British Fantasy AwardAnthologySmall Beer Press and Big Mouth House (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant)2006 Locus AwardAnthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (19th Annual Collection) (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant)2007 Locus AwardAnthology 2007 British Fantasy AwardAnthology Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (with Gavin Grant)2007 Hugo AwardSemiprozine The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet2008 Locus AwardAnthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (20th Annual Collection) (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant)2008 Locus AwardAnthology Pretty Monsters2009 Locus AwardCollection 2009 World Fantasy AwardAnthology "Secret Identity"2010 Locus AwardNovelette "The Summer People"2011 Shirley Jackson AwardNovelette 2012 Locus AwardNovelette Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories