Kate Elizabeth Russell

Kate Elizabeth Russell (born 1984) is an American author. Her debut novel, My Dark Vanessa, was published in 2020 and became a national bestseller.

Russell was raised in the town of Clifton, Maine, attending John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Maine.^[1][2] She subsequently studied as an undergraduate at the University of Maine at Farmington, earning a B.F.A. in creative writing in 2006,^[3] and went on to earn an M.F.A. from Indiana University^[4] and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Kansas.^[5]

Russell's first novel offers a fictional account of a traumatic sexual relationship between its protagonist, Vanessa Wye, and Jacob Strane. Wye is 15 years old and a lonely student at boarding school when Strane, her 42-year-old English teacher, begins grooming her for a sexual relationship which will come to cast an appalling shadow over her life. The novel is a first-person narrative, jumping forward and backward in time amongst 2000, 2007, and 2017, with this last year affording Russell the social context of the Me Too movement.^[6]

It is implied that Vanessa is, at least in part, an unreliable narrator owing to her reluctance to see herself as a victim or Strane as a predator.

My Dark Vanessa was a national bestseller.^[7] It was selected for translation and publication in 22 countries, and optioned for the screen.^[2][3] Reviewed positively in a number of publications,^{[8][9][6][10][11][12][13]} My Dark Vanessa brought Russell into a public conversation regarding the novel's treatment of abusive sexual relationships, as well as an individual's right to privacy regarding past trauma.^{[14][15][16][17]}

According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on twenty-one critic reviews with seven being "rave" and thirteen being "positive" and one being "mixed".^[18] In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (3.86 out of 5) from the site which was based on eleven critic reviews.^[19][20][21]

Russell was shortlisted for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize for My Dark Vanessa.^[22]

My Dark Vanessa occasioned pre-publication controversy when author Wendy C. Ortiz complained that Russell's novel had received different support from that given to Ortiz's memoir concerning a relationship with her 8th grade English teacher.^[23][24] Ortiz had not read Russell's book,^[25] but discussed Russell's alleged appropriation on Twitter with Roxane Gay.^[26][27] Gay subsequently published Ortiz's essay "Adventures in Publishing Outside the Gates," which alleged My Dark Vanessa bore "eerie story similarities" to Ortiz's memoir; the article began with an illustration of one artist copying another's work.^[28] However, the Associated Press reported, "Reviewers who looked at both books saw no evidence of plagiarism,"^[29] a conclusion echoed by Lila Shapiro of New York Magazine.^[24] Nevertheless, in response to social media comments, and in the wake of the controversy over American Dirt,^[30] Oprah Winfrey, who had originally tapped My Dark Vanessa as a selection for her influential Book Club, rescinded the selection.^[29][31]

As a result of the accusations of plagiarism and appropriation, Russell made a public statement disclosing that My Dark Vanessa had been inspired by her own experiences with sexual abuse as a teenager.^[29][32]

• —— (2020). My Dark Vanessa. William Morrow. ISBN 9780062941527.