Kelly Link is the author of the novel, The Book of Love, and the collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, Get in Trouble, and White Cat, Black Dog. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She was a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She is the owner of Book Moon, an independent bookshop in Easthampton, MA. Link was born in Miami, Florida. She currently lives with her family, dog, and chickens in Northampton, Massachusetts.
In these five exercises, we will be drawing on fairy tales, ghost stories, family stories, and all the things that bring us pleasure when we encounter them in narrative. Bring pen and paper or your laptop, and two first sentences from the work (novels, short stories, nonfiction, essays) of two writers you love.