Author and School of the Arts alumna Karen Russell will discuss the craft of writing. The event is part of the Heyman Center for the Humanities Writing Lives Series and the Columbia School of the Arts Creative Writing Lecture series.

Karen Russell’s most recent book of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, published in 2014, was named a best book of the year by The Boston Globe, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Huffington Post, and The A.V. Club. Her debut novel Swamplandia! published in 2011, has received wide critical acclaim. In 2012 it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a recipient of The New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. The New Yorker named Russell one of the “20 Under 40” fiction writers, and The New York Times heralded Swamplandia! as one of the 10 Best Books of 2011. The National Book Foundation named Russell "5 Under 35" in November 2009 after the publication of her debut book of short stories St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, released in 2006.

Russell is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize, and is a spring 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her stories have been featured in Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope.

Event is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.