White Cat, Black Dog on the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award Shortlist
White Cat, Black Dog is one of ten titles on the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award Shortlist:
White Cat, Black Dog is one of ten titles on the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award Shortlist:
The Chautauqua Institute announced that White Cat, Black Dog is one of seven finalists for this year’s Chautauqua Prize.
Katy Waldman interviewed Kelly for The New Yorker:
The MacArthur-winning author on the worthwhile frivolity of the fantasy genre, how magic is and is not like a credit card, and why she hates to write but does it anyway.
Isaac Fitzgerald and Jasmine Guillory recommended books on Today on Thursday, March 7, and Isaac — in his high-energy recommendation — said in part: “Link is an extraordinary writer, and a weird writer, and this novel is the culmination of all of her talents,” he adds.
Watch the clip here:
The Book of Love comes out today and Kelly will be at Books Are Magic tonight to celebrate and launch it. There will be signed books available at many indie bookshops, Kelly will be visiting some soon, and will be doing an online event with Kathleen Jennings on March 5th hosted by our good friends at Moon Palace. They will be sending out signed book plates with orders.
The novel has received some great reviews and today a lovely piece dropped on Elle, book recommendations and more from Kelly. Read it here.
The Today Show included White Cat, Black Dog in their Best New Books of 2023:
Kelly Link is the master of the modern fairy tale. This collection of short stories is deceptively easy to read – you’ll be turning the pages of strange events quickly, but the stories and their strange events are liable to linger in your mind.
And The Book of Love is on Time’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024:
In her highly anticipated debut novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link takes readers on a surreal journey to a fictional coastal town in Massachusetts. It’s been nearly a year since teenagers Laura, Daniel, and Mo disappeared and were later presumed dead—leaving Laura’s sister Susannah grieving and alone. But then the impossible happens: the trio, alongside another older spirit, are resurrected by a mystical being the kids previously knew as their high-school music teacher. The four formerly deceased characters are forced to compete in a series of high-stakes magical challenges. The winners get to stay alive—and the losers will be sent back to the realm of the dead. Link weaves together elements of horror, fantasy, and magical realism in a twisting, turning, and often whimsical tale.
Laura Miller chose Magic for Beginners for Vulture’s Premature Attempt at the 21st Century Canon:
“Any collection of Kelly Link’s stories will do. They shimmer in the borderlands of myth, genre, and literature. A convenience store caters to the mild-mannered zombies who emerge from a nearby gorge and clumsily attempt to shop. A group of teenagers bond over an elusive TV series. A suburban family becomes slowly and methodically alienated from every possession they own. Link’s stories can make you shudder, then laugh, then feel like a god has just walked past your window.” —Laura Miller
Time lists 10 books for the best of the year so far and includes Get in Trouble.
For almost a decade now, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and I have been working together. By which I mean we meet up, talk about what we’re working on, do some writing, pass our laptops around and give each other feedback or fix spelling mistakes, and so on. By so on, I mean that we talk about narrative. We talk about each others’ work. We talk about things that we’ve read. Romance novels! Young adult novels! Ghost stories! We talk about the television shows that we’re watching. We talk about what makes readers like a character, or how to make those readers want particular things from a story, or how to surprise readers by giving them something else entirely. We also talk about publishing.
I wrote the various stories in Get in Trouble over the last ten years. Holly and Cassie read them, in various drafts, and in some cases, even helped me figure out what I wanted to write next. As Get in Trouble has gotten closer to publication, Cassie and Holly have been finishing up books that I read in early drafts and helped figure out parts of. Cassie has been writing Shadowhunter novels (start with City of Bones if you haven’t read any of them yet.) Holly has published, most recently, The Darkest Part of the Forest. (They also co-wrote middle-grade novel The Iron Trial, because they had some spare time.) And since our work lives have been so intertwined, it seems appropriate that Powell’s Books has agreed to let me collaborate on this blog post with them.
Here’s the deal. Do you have questions about writing? About genre? About publishing? About work methods, career, or your love life? Or: would you just like a book recommendation? Ask us anything!
You have until 3 pm EST on Friday, January 23. And Cassie, Holly, and I will do what we usually do. We’ll talk things over, joke around, and possibly even try to be helpful. And then Powell’s Books will run our answers on their blog in the first week of February.
Updated: Thank you for all the questions! The Q&A will be posted on the Powell’s Blog soon!