Grand Rapids, Michigan (February 4, 2009) -

Published on

Aquinas College will welcome author Karen Russell to campus on Thursday, March 5 for a reading as part of its Contemporary Writers Series. Russell will give her presentation beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Wege Center Ballroom. The event is free and the public is welcome.

Russell, a native of Miami, received her master of fine arts degree from Columbia University and now lives in New York City. Her debut collection of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is published by Knopf in the U.S. and by Chatto & Windus in the UK. Currently she is working on a novel, Swamlandia!, about a family of alligator wrestlers in the Florida swamp.

She was featured in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and New York magazine's list of twenty-five people to watch under the age of 26. In 2005, she received the Transatlantic Review/Henfield Foundation Award. Her fiction has appeared in various publications Conjunctions, Granta, Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The New Yorker to name a few.

The Aquinas College Contemporary Writers Series was founded by a grant from Tony Foster, M.D. ’73 and Linda Nemec Foster ’72. The series kicked off in 1997 by bringing well-known authors to Aquinas College for public readings and workshops with students. For information on the Series, call (616) 632-2127 or visit the Contemporary Writers Series web site.