Kayla Rae Whitaker

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel The Animators (Random House) was a Spring 2017 Discover Great New Writers Pick from Barnes & Noble. Her work has appeared in Buzzfeed, Literary Hub, Split Lip Magazine, Bodega, Joyland, Five Quarterly, American Microreviews and Interviews, and others. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Kentucky and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University, as a recipient of the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship. After several years of living in Brooklyn, she recently returned to Kentucky, her home state, with her husband and their geriatric tomcat, Breece D’J Pancake. Read her interview in Still: the Journal about her love of storytelling, animation, hillbillies in cartoons, and Kentucky.

Prior to her appearance at KWWC2017, Kayla will be the featured reader at the Kentucky Women Writers Preview Party at Wild Fig Books & Coffee, 726 North Limestone, on Saturday, May 13, 4:00-5:30 p.m.

Photo credit: Mark Bennington