Shelby Wardlaw is a writer, teacher, and translator from Austin, Texas. She holds a B.A. in English and Russian Studies from Vassar College, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches in the Writing Program at Rutgers University. She is the co-founder and co-host of the Red Light Fiction Reading Series in Brooklyn (@redlightfiction).

Her fiction, non-fiction and Russian poetry translations have appeared in Drafthorse, Interim, Northwest Review, Hunger Mountain, iō Literary Journal, Philadelphia Stories, hex literary, Vassar Review, and the Neon Door Literary Exhibit. In the spring of 2020, she won Honorable Mention in the Pigeon Pages Fiction Contest. She was a Finalist for the 2021 Salamander Fiction Prize and the 2021 McGlinn Prize for Fiction and was selected as one of the top five finalists in The Writer magazine’s 2020 Fall Short Story Contest. In 2022, her story “Papaya Erectus” was longlisted for Fractured’s Monsters, Mystery and Mayhem Contest and later nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Praised by The Writer editorial staff as a “stunningly talented writer,” Shelby is now working on her first novel.