8/7/2019 Library Q&A with Karen Russell

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Q+A with Karen Russell author of SWAMPLANDIA!

and one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40”—Forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf, 2/1/2011—

Q: "Swamplandia!" is a continuation of the story of the Bigtree Wrestling Dynasty who

we first met in "Ava Wrestles the Alligator", a story that appeared in your debut story

collection "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves". Where did you originally get the

idea for this family?

A: These folks have been around for years now—since I was 22. In the very first draft of this

place that I wrote, Ava was a murderous boy named Hector and I believe my very wise, very

kind professor actually sighed out loud after reading it and said, "Oh Karen—I just do not

know what you are doing here." And this was a bummer, because neither did I! All I knew

was that, unlike my other characters, who generally left me alone after I '"finished" and

published or abandoned a story, these Bigtrees kept rattling around inside my head. Their 

world, "Swamplandia!" was a place I could really see in full color behind my eyelids, which

doesn't always happen. I'm going to resist my inner list towards a terrible pun now (their 

world "sucked me in!" I was "swamped!" etc).

And the world of the novel really is, in kilometers, pretty close to home. I grew up in South

Florida and our family's trips to the Everglades and to Key West probably form the literal

bedrock of the Bigtrees' strange world. We took field trips to the Shark River Valley, and to a

Seminole reservation.

Alligators have always fascinated me, too. They were always a rumored presence in Florida

bodies of water--this primordial monster grinning its way across a Miami Springs golf course,or swimming with this reptilian insouciance through the canal behind a grade school..

Q: Do you have a favorite library or librarian from your past?

A: I have a favorite English teacher, this patron saint of grammar, Miss Madeleine Timmis,

who gave me Michael Crichton and John Grisham books on the sly and without whose

encouragement I would never have become a writer, I'm convinced. And I still remember the

whole-body thrill I felt at age seven when our grade school librarian, Sister Patricia, gave me

"special access" to the grown up kid books early on, which was maybe the best compliment of 

my life to date—to get to exit the patronizingly carpeted "bean bag" area of our very tiny

library and freely touch the spines of the "adult" (read: Nancy Drew) books. I don't know a

single writer who doesn't cite the library as their favorite childhood place—I remember it as

a nerd's Valhalla.

Q: Are you the type of author that spends a good amount of time on research? Or do you just

jump in?

A: Oh, I love to procrastinate with "research," especially the lazy kind you can do on the

internet! I can spend an hour researching some lame question like, "can a manatee do long

division?" or whatever. But I don't recommend this approach. I do think it's a good idea to

read enough that you feel like you have earned the authority to make a big imaginative leap.

8/7/2019 Library Q&A with Karen Russell

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To import the sorts of sturdy lumber—literal, concrete details—to build your imaginary

world.

Q: If you were to write in a library book (a horrible, horrible idea) which book would it be

and what would you write?

A: What! I'm offended that you even asked me this! I would never do that—next you'll beasking me, "to what tempo would you shake a baby?" (Answer: Bossa Nova). No, seriously, I

think I would write inside of a George Saunders or a Kelly Link book, "READER OF THE

FUTURE/ANTHROPOLOGIST OF THE YEAR 3003—YOU MUST READ THIS EXCELLENT

ARTIFACT! IT IS SOME OF THE BEST OUR CULTURE HAS TO OFFER" or some kind of 

Ozymandias-style compliment.

Q: How do you like Washington Heights? Does your residence or sense of place tend to

dissolve into your writing?

A: Well, my best friend jokes that we live "above the Daddy Yankee line"—which means that

our heart beats are synced to the rhythms of reggaeton. I love my neighborhood—there's

always a party going on, and then ten blocks above me we have the weird Manhattan Narnia

of Fort Tryon park and the Cloisters. New York hasn't really filtered into my writing yet; on

those rare occasions when the writing is going well, I do tend to go deeply into whatever 

swampy or whacked-out world I've got going on the page.

Q: Are there any books from this year that you’ve really liked or are excited to read?

A: "The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton." Wells Tower's collection, which is amazing. "The

Anthologist," by Nicholson Baker. "Swimming" by Nicole Keegan. "The Perfect Reader" by

Maggie Pouncey. "The Ask" by Sam Lipsyte. "Lit" by Mary Karr. I'm sure I'm forgetting more!

Q: Your writing is so magical and whimsical. Who are your literary inspirations?A: As a kid /I loved Oz worlds, imaginary castles, the Ohio/Mars fusion of Ray Bradbury's

stories, the evil clown towns of Stephen King, Frank Herbert's "Dune" and John Wyndham's

triffid apocalypse, "Watership Down" with its psychic rabbits--the weirder the better,

basically. I was lucky enough to read George Saunders, Kelly Link, Katherine Dunne, Ben

Marcus, good old Franz Kafka, Denis Johnson, Junot Diaz, Isaac Babel, Gabriel Garcia

Marquez, and Flannery O'Connor all in the same blissed-out two or three year period, and

my dome was blown. They are still teaching me how to write, every time I reread one of their 

fine books.

About Karen Russell:

Karen Russell, a native of Miami, has been featured in both The New Yorker's debut fiction

issue and New York magazine's list of twenty-five people to watch under the age of twenty-

six. Most recently she was named one of The New Yorker's “20 Under 40”, a list of writers

they describe as "twenty young writers who capture the inventiveness and the vitality of 

contemporary American fiction". She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program and is the

2005 recipient of the Transatlantic Review/Henfield Foundation Award; her fiction has

recently appeared in Conjunctions , Granta , Zoetrope , Oxford American , and The New 

Yorker . Twenty-eight years old, she lives in New York City.