Kelly Mustian grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and she was awarded the Mississippi Library Association’s 2023 Author Award for Fiction. Her debut novel, The Girls in the Stilt House, is a USA Today and SIBA bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2022 Crook’s Corner Book Prize. Kelly currently lives in North Carolina.