Karen Russell is the author of three story collections, the novella Sleep Donation, and the novel, Swamplandia!, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of 2011. She was a 2009 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree for St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Russell is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a Shirley Jackson Award. Russell is the librettist and co-lyricist with Ellis Ludwig-Leone for The Night Falls, which had its world premiere at Peak Performances in 2023. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, son, and daughter.

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