A Legend on Campus

Siena has a literary legend on its faculty, according to the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library (FFAPL).

Karin Lin-Greenberg (above, 2nd from right), M.F.A., associate professor of English, was honored by FFAPL at their Literary Legends signature fundraiser held October 19 at Café Madison in Albany. The annual event recognizes outstanding local authors, illustrators, and publishers for their contributions to the art of letters.

In her acceptance speech, Lin-Greenberg said, "I'm grateful for this honor, but I'm even more grateful for libraries and the role they've played in my life both as a reader and a writer."

Noting that public libraries now offer computer/internet access, community activities, and in addition to books loan out everything from DVDs to board games to fishing poles, she said, "What's available at the library - from the objects we borrow, to the people we can meet, to the skills we can gain, to the information we can access - enhances our lives outside of the walls of the library. Libraries are a crucial resource for us all."

Lin-Greenberg's 2023 debut novel, You Are Here was chosen as an Indie Next pick from the American Booksellers Association and was a People magazine Book of the Week. It also received recommendations by The Washington Post, Time, Elle, Ms., Oprahdaily.com, Shondaland, Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and others.

Her first story collection, Faulty Predictions, won the 2013 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press and won gold in the Short Story category of Foreword Reviews' INDIE Book of the Year in 2014. Her second story collection, Vanished, won the 2021 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Fiction.

Her stories have appeared in literary journals including New England Review, The Southern Review, Story, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She was a finalist for the Chicago Tribune's 2018 Nelson Algren Award. Her story "Housekeeping" received a Pushcart Prize and was listed as a Distinguished Story of 2020 in Best American Short Stories 2021. She has been awarded fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Wesleyan Writers Conference, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and MacDowell.