Kristen Arnett (born December 16, 1980) is an American fiction author and essayist. Her debut novel, ''Mostly Dead Things'', was a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' bestseller.

Early life and education

Arnett was born and raised in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, where she attended

Winter Park High School Winter Park High School (often simply abbreviated as WPHS) located in Winter Park, Florida, United States is one of nineteen public high schools in Orange County. Winter Park High School is a International Baccalaureate school and delivers Advan ...

. She graduated from

Rollins College Rollins College is a private college in Winter Park, Florida. It was founded in November 1885 and has about 30 undergraduate majors and several graduate programs. It is Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institution. History Rollins Colle ...

with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in English and received her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

library and information science Library and information science(s) or studies (LIS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that deals generally with organization, access, collection, and protection/regulation of information, whether in physical (e.g. art, legal proceedings, e ...

from

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

. Arnett was a fellow in the Lambda Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices in 2013.

Career

Arnett was a

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

at Rollins College and the

Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law The Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law (also known as Barry Law) is located in Orlando, Florida. The school is an academic college of Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. Barry Law offers various programs for full-time and part-time students ...

Barry University Barry University is a private Catholic university in Miami Shores, Florida. Founded in 1940 by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, it is one of the largest Catholic universities in the Southeast and is within the territory of the Archdiocese of Miami ...

. She is a columnist for ''

Literary Hub Literary Hub is a daily literary website that launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and Electric Literature founder Andy Hunter. Conten ...

'' and was selected as a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute for the spring 2020 semester.

Writing

Her first collection of short fiction, ''Felt in the Jaw'', was published by Split Lip Press and received the 2017 Coil Book Award. Arnett is a self-described "

7-Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. A ...

scholar" and celebrated the debut of ''Felt in the Jaw'' at a 7-Eleven store in

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

. The short story collection focuses on living as a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Arnett's debut novel, ''Mostly Dead Things'', which was published by

Tin House ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

in June 2019, was a ''New York Times'' bestseller and received critical acclaim. The novel was heralded by literary critic

Parul Sehgal Parul Sehgal is an American literary critic based in New York, who publishes primarily in American venues. She is a former senior editor and columnist at ''The New York Times Book Review'', and was one of the team of book critics at ''The New Y ...

as her "song of the summer" and by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'''s book critic Katy Waldman as one of the best books of 2019. The book features an openly

main character who runs her family's

taxidermy Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proce ...

shop after her father dies by

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

. Arnett's novel, ''With Teeth'', was published by

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

in 2022. Arnett's stories have appeared in online and print publications including ''Guernica'' magazine, ''

The North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

,'' ''

Oprah Magazine ''O, The Oprah Magazine'', also known simply as ''O'', is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications. Overview It was first published on April 19, 2000. , its average paid circulation was ...

'', and ''Gay Magazine.'' Her essays have been published in various venues including ''

The Rumpus ''The Rumpus'' is an online literary magazine launched on January 20, 2009. The site features interviews, book reviews, essays, comics, and critiques of creative culture as well as original fiction and poetry. The site runs two subscription-base ...

,'' ''

Electric Literature ''Electric Literature'' is an independent publisher founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a quarterly journal. It launched the first fiction magazine on the iPhone and iPad. The print version of the journal is produced via print ...

,'' and ''

Orlando Weekly ''Orlando Weekly'' is a liberal progressive alternative newsweekly distributed in the Greater Orlando area of Florida. Every Thursday, 40,000 issues of the paper are distributed to more than 1,100 locations across Orange, Osceola and Seminole coun ...

.''

Marvin

Arnett's Twitter feed became a case study in how corporations use Twitter when one day in 2018 she tweeted, "this morning at 7-eleven i saw a lizard next to the coffee maker and the cashier said 'no worries that's just marvin, he likes the smell.'"

's official Twitter account replied to the tweet, which ultimately garnered over 350,000 likes, asking "Oh no! Can you DM us with the store location you visited so we can check in on Marvin? Thank you!" to which Arnett replied "no way i'm not gonna narc on my buddy." Screengrabs of the exchange have been widely reposted as a classic piece of

digital culture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social media ...

and have appeared in the so-called Internet Hall of Fame. When a

monitor lizard Monitor lizards are lizards in the genus ''Varanus,'' the only extant genus in the family Varanidae. They are native to Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and one species is also found in the Americas as an invasive species. About 80 species are recogn ...

visited a convenience store in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand in 2021 and started climbing up the shelves heading toward the ceiling, the video was posted to Twitter and a user helpfully replied, "That's just Marvin, he likes the smell."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arnett, Kristen 1980 births Living people People from Orlando, Florida Rollins College alumni Florida State University alumni American librarians American women librarians American LGBT writers LGBT people from Florida 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American women writers