Kelly and Matsudu Aoko are one of three pairs of writers taking part in the Japan Foundation’s series “Writing to Meet You: Letters for Secluded Times.” Tsumura Kikuko & Roddy Doyle and Ono Masatsugu & Bryan Washington make up the other pairs.

The letters are originally published in Japanese in Subaru magazine and then on the website one month later.

Kelly has a new story — “Skinder’s Veil” — in Ellen Datlow’s new anthology When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson. Signed copies are available from Book Moon.

Kelly contributed to the 20th anniversary anthology of Diagram:

a tarot deck: an exquisite literary object and a usable tarot deck usable for divination. As with our 10th anniversary poker deck, our contributors randomly selected cards and created new works in the spirit of the cards they drew. Unlike most of our anthologies, this features all new work and celebrates 20 damn years of publishing DIAGRAM, one of the oldest (and best we daresay) literary journals around.

The 20th anniversary deck features 78 tarot-sized (2.75″ x 4.75″) cards in the four suits (wands, swords, cups, pentacles) and the major arcana in a custom box.

In the latest episode of his eponymous podcast, this week LeVar Burton reads Kelly’s story “The Specialist’s Hat.” If you’re ready, take a deep breath . . .

On July 10th, Kelly’s new story co-written with Cassandra Clare and part of the Ghosts of the Shadow Market ebook serial “Learn About Loss” will be published in ebook and audiobook.

The story is part of Clare’s epic bestselling Shadowhunter series and is set in “the Shadow Market” which is a meeting point for faeries, werewolves, warlocks and vampires.”

Here are links to Kobo for the Shadow Market serial so far — the ebooks and audiobooks are available at all the usual ebooksites online:

“Son of the Dawn” by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan
“Cast Long Shadows” by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan
“Every Exquisite Thing” by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson (June 12, 2018)

There will be a total of ten stories, including another story co-written by Kelly Link and Cassandra Clare, which will be published when all ten stories are collected in a hardcover collection in 2019.

LitHub posted a list of 20 Great Writers on Their Favorite Story Collections which included this:

A one-size-fits-all story collection does not exist, of course—sometimes a writer needs some Borges and sometimes she needs some Lydia Davis. The writer who’s never heard of Barry Hannah probably requires a dose of Airships, and the writer who has never read Steven Millhauser needs to fall into “In the Reign of Harad IV” ASAP.

But if there’s one collection I find myself recommending more than others lately, it’s Kelly Link’s Magic For Beginners. Lots of student writers read Harry Potter or Percy Jackson as kids; maybe in their teens they moved on to Stephen King or Bradbury or Gaiman or (one hopes) LeGuin. I’m learning that these writers, when they’re being asked to read Edith Wharton or John Updike or Melville, are dazzled by Link’s ability to plant multiple limbs in multiple genres. She fuses childhood terrors with adult estrangement; her stories are gorgeous, delicate, spooky, human, and deeply layered.
–Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See

Jami Attenberg on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book on reading ghost stories while writing her latest novel All Grown Up:

“Kelly Link: one of my favorite American writers of any kind.Beyond the traditional otherworldliness that is the mark of speculative fiction, Link is an extremely funny writer capable of incredibly human observations in an easy, natural writing style. People disappear in Link’s wide-ranging stories. They move in and out of each other’s lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But there is always a sense of empathy which I perhaps treasure most in a book.”

Nicole Lamy includes Magic for Beginners in her Match Book column which appeared in print for the first time this weekend on October 8, 2017, in the Sunday Book Review:

“More enchantment lies in Kelly Link’s deadpan, winsome collection of short stories “Magic for Beginners,” though angst haunts these pages, too. A lovelorn teenager hunts for her grandmother’s missing handbag; a witch’s children pine for happy lives. Link is a master of teenage consciousness — convenience-store ethos and pop cultural references included — layered with the additional charm of parallel dimensions.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/books/review/suggestions-literary-fiction-satire-fantasy.html?_r=1

In a NYT story about authors who own bookstores (Summer Reading Recommendations, From 6 Novelists Who Own Bookstores) in a side note Alexandra Alter noted that Emma Straub’s staff recommendations at her new store Books Are Magic include Magic for Beginners:

On a sunny afternoon in late April, the day before the opening of Books Are Magic in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the novelist Emma Straub was apologetically shooing away potential customers.

A woman with a dog poked her head in the door, which was still being painted, to say that “there has never been more buzz” about a store opening in the neighborhood. Ms. Straub, an owner of the bookstore, told her the place was dog-friendly and invited her to come back when it opened.

The space, a former clothing boutique on Smith Street, still smelled like fresh paint and sawdust. By the register were shelves full of new fiction and nonfiction and a bookcase dedicated to eclectic titles published by The New York Review of Books. Nearby, the fiction section held a mix of contemporary works and classics, including two editions of “Middlemarch,” Ms. Straub’s favorite novel.

Staff picks sat on the opposite wall — Ms. Straub, 37, had recommended “Magic for Beginners,” a collection of short stories by Kelly Link. Down a few stairs, a separate bright, airy room with exposed brick walls, wooden rafters and a skylight was filled almost entirely with children’s books. . . . Read on