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Kayla Rae Whitaker

Biography

Kayla Rae Whitaker

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s work has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, Split Lip Magazine, BODY, Bodega, Joyland, The Switchback, Five Quarterly, American Microreviews and Interviews, and others. She has a BA from the University of Kentucky and an MFA from New York University. After many years of living in Brooklyn, she returned to Kentucky, her home state, in 2016 with her husband and their geriatric tomcat, Breece D’J Pancake. THE ANIMATORS is her first novel.

Kayla Rae Whitaker

Books by Kayla Rae Whitaker

by Kayla Rae Whitaker - Family Life, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Marriage

With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- rags to riches --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, each member of the family is struggling to keep up. Money is transforming Fred. Josiah, the oldest son, wants nothing to do with the family business; Sam is seeing things that might not really be there; and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers had. Meanwhile, Fran is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker-Taylor’s, risking everything along the way. While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran learn that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone --- no returns, no exchanges. 

by Kayla Rae Whitaker - Fiction

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo: Sharon is quietly ambitious but self-doubting, Mel is brash and unapologetic, always the life of a party. They spent their 20s ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature and stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success comes doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. When the only other partner Sharon has ever truly known --- her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy --- reappears, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.