Kelly Link

Over the last few years, Kelly Link has come to be regarded as perhaps the most imaginative writer working the rich territory where fantasy, ghost stories and faerie tales come together with literary fiction. Handbags have entire civilizations in them; a poor woman who needs train fare sells her niece to a wizard. "The zombies were like Canadians," one story goes, "in that they looked enough like real people at first to fool you."

Kelly Link's house is not haunted, although she wouldn't mind if it were. Instead, it is as bright and bookish as the author herself, a great place to walk around and browse through the shelves or chat with Link in her kitchen as she enjoys a cup of tea and ponders the fantasy life. "In the real world, in the non-book world, there are lots of pieces of information that are mysterious or missing or just not there," Link says, afternoon sunlight upon her round, open face.