Kristen Arnett Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kristen Arnett is a renowned American novelist, librarian, columnist, and scholar. She is famous for writing essays and queer fiction novels. Arnett is particularly popular for her novels, Mostly Dead Things and Felt in the Jaw. In 2015, she won the Ninth Letter’s Literary Award and was the runner-up for the Robert Watson Literary Award in 2016. She was also a finalist for the Fiction Prize by Indiana Review in 2016. In addition to her writing projects, she writes columns for Literary Hub. Arnett’s work has featured in a number of literary magazines such as Gulf Coast, The Normal School, The Journal, The Guardian, Bennington Review, Guernica, Volume 1 Brooklyn, The Rumpus, North American Review, McSweeney’s, Catapult, Electric Literature, Tin House, Salon, PBS Newshour, TriQuarterly, etc.

Author Arnett’s debut collection of stories, Felt in Jaw, was released by Split Lip publishers in 2017 and was awarded the Coil Book Award in the same year. The Tin House publication has bought the publishing rights her new novel, Mostly Dead Things, and is expected to publish it in mid-2019. Arnett is represented by the Pande Literary Agency. Author Arnett spent her earlier years growing up in Orlando and still lives there. She was born in Florida and is very much in love with the place. She says that Central Florida has a weird vibe that attracts her. Arnett likes the twisting and vinety embrace of Florida as well as its wonderful people. She appreciates the fact that people in Orlando always try their best to build a peaceful and social community. They don’t always succeed, but their efforts in working through their failures are something that many people love about Orlando, including Arnett.

The family of Arnett is extremely conservative as they have Southern Baptist faith. They have inculcated the same faith in her too. She believes that she has had a complicated relationship with the members of her family. For the last one year, she has kept herself distanced from them and thinks of it as a healthy decision of her life. For Arnett, the real meaning of family is maintaining relationships with people who accept her and care about her. This is probably the reason why she is too attached to her writing community, her close friends, and her queer community. Arnett started her career as a librarian by working on a part-time basis initially. Once started, she couldn’t get herself out of it. However, it was not her intention to develop it into a career. And as it remained stuck with her for all these years, Arnett believes that she doesn’t think she could get involved in anything else. Arnett loves to research and read a lot. She also likes public services. When she was working in a staff position, Arnett thought that she could join library school and make two times the money. This enabled her to pursue Masters and shift her focus to academics. Arnett thinks that being a librarian is quite interesting as there is not a single boring day at work.

Having a Twitter account has benefitted Arnett in many ways. She was able to discover and contact many writers. She believes she was lucky to come across Alex Chee, Christine Lee, and Randa Jarrar and their brilliant writing through Twitter. Arnett is also very grateful to the social site because it has helped her develop friendships with numerous good people and fans throughout the world. Also, with the help of Twitter, Arnett has become a better procrastinator. If not making her writing better, the site has helped her get in touch with great writers and that has indeed brought improvement in her as a writer. Arnett has gained a lot of inspiration from reading the stories of all the great authors. Author Arnett likes to equate getting attention with being funny. She is of the opinion that if a person is able to make good jokes at a gathering then other people will definitely listen to him/her. Arnett has a great interest in the idea of mirroring and twins and is fascinated by the idea that there is a person having similar features, traits, etc., and who has an intimate and deep connection with you. Serene Hakim is Arnett’s agent at Pande Literary, who she is currently working with to do the final editing of her upcoming novel. Arnett is very excited about her latest novel and is hopeful that it is going to entertain the readers much more than her previous book.

The debut book written by author Kristen Arnett is entitled ‘Felt in the Jaw’. It was released in 2017 by the Split Lip Press. In this book, Arnett has tried to explore the lives of queer ladies living in Florida and the hardships that they have to go through along with their families. At the novel’s start, it is mentioned that a young and talented dancer loses language and her family finds it difficult to understand the new roles. When a mother is camping along with her small daughters in her backyard, she gets bitten by a spider and has to endure the horrifying effects. On the other hand, a possible reunion of a family goes wayward when several cousins remain glued to their personal devices. Overall, Arnett has mentioned ten different stories all with deep meanings. Every story depicts that deep vulnerability betrays the outward strength.

The characters are seen being desperate for family connection, but they end up isolating themselves in their own worlds. Sometimes, the world itself isolates them from the rest. This book describes nervous, tender, alienated lesbian, domestic/natural realism stories set entirely in Florida. Each aspect of this book seems real in every sense. The short stories make the readers look into their everyday lives and take responsibility for their actions. They describe the annoyances and troubles that are experienced by lots of people. Every character is portrayed as normal people of the world, who are self-conscious, imperfect, anxious, etc. These people sometimes face the consequences of the actions of their own and sometimes they are forced to bear the consequences of the unfair world around them. In spite of all the difficulties, they manage to survive and exist. In the end, the book explains that it is not necessary for every story to have a happy ending. They can still be inspiring by depicting reality and not just happy endings.