Word Works: Kelly Link

Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 7pm

Sold out. Tickets will be released at the door on a first come, first served basis as they become available.

Hailed as "the most darkly playful voice in American fiction," indie publisher and short story writer Kelly Link creates brilliantly detailed, emotionally haunting "pocket universes" laced with humor and magic, enchanting readers with her fantastical imagination.

In her Word Works talk, entitled "A Vampire is a Flexible Metaphor," Link will explore questions that arise when introducing the fantastic into a narrative, which creates new opportunities and new challenges. What is a vampire story really about? Why do ghost stories hold such an enduring appeal? What are the rules of writing fantasy, and how do we tether the unreal to the real?

Ramon Isao will lead an onstage Q&A following the talk. Books will be for sale through Elliott Bay Book Company.

Kelly Link is the author of the collections Get in Trouble, Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters. She and Gavin J. Grant have co-edited a number of anthologies, including multiple volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and, for young adults, Monstrous Affections and Steampunk!

Link's short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, A Public Space, Tin House, One Story, Conjunctions, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her short story collection Get In Trouble.

She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press, which has been recognized as a leading small publisher of literary science fiction and fantasy. Link is also a co-editor of the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, which features an eclectic mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.


The Frye Art Museum

704 Terry Ave.
Seattle, WA 98104