Writer & Librarian.
Kelly Lindell’s work appears in Taco Bell Quarterly, Longleaf Review, CRAFT, and Atticus Review. Her short stories have been nominated for Best Small Fictions, the Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. She holds an MFA in fiction from The New School and has participated in Tin House and Yale Writers’ Workshops.
Kelly has over a decade of experience working as a digital project manager with organizations such as Saugatuck StoryFest and WriteOn NYC - an organization that places passionate writing educators in Manhattan and Newark public schools. When not writing, she works as an academic librarian.
Kelly is writing a gothic inspired novel about legacy and ritual, set on the fringes of the Great Dismal Swamp.
Recent Work
CRAFT, Feb 2021 with author’s note
Longleaf Review, Feb 2021, Nominated for Best Small Fictions Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist
Atticus Review, Oct 2020, Pushcart nominated, Content Warning: Suicide
Taco Bell Quarterly, Oct 2021
Excerpts
Normal Girl
“Bedtime in first grade is finger jelly and sock lint. Vaseline rubbed on my bloody, split, vellum-dry knuckles; hands cocooned in white Nike gym socks, wrapped on my wrist with scrunchies. I am told to sleep. Wake up for school with shiny-soft human hands. Do not take the socks off to wash hands (again). Do not flicker the lights in multiples of three. Do not say the Lord’s Prayer nine times. No need to say it loudly; God will hear. Maybe say it in your head, if you must. Dad is trying to sleep. Be a Normal Girl.”
CRAFT, February 2021
Published with an author’s note
The Last Coffee Date
“On the day of the court proceedings, we were both early. I hunted for quarters in my crumb-coated car seats, to feed the meter while he waited. We walked through the metal detectors. We stood in the elevator between columns of suits; a spectrum of grey. We waited in a large room with many other couples but the room was silent. My head was thumping from a migraine; I hadn't slept the night before. I turned to my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I said 'do you want to get a cup of coffee?' He said yes and we left.”
Taco Bell Quarterly, August 2021
Now His Body is a Uniform
“It will be a damn fine day, you said, and so Paul rallied the gear: droopy fishing poles, night crawlers, nickel-shiny lures with foil tails, a Remington 12-gauge rifle with the safety on, all rattling in the rusted truck bed, bouncing (“the suspension’s shot,” you’d told Nana as she signed another check)… Sunrise dripping over everything, trout scales shining on the line and the low thrum of your baritone (God, could you sing). This is how Paul tells the story of your last morning on earth.”
Atticus Review, October 2020
