Kayla Rutledge lives in Durham, North Carolina. She holds an MFA in  Fiction from North Carolina State University. Her short story “Chicken” was the recipient of the statewide 2019 James Hurst Prize in Fiction  from North Carolina State University. 

In 2020, she graduated from the honors college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her senior thesis, “Grown: and other stories” was awarded highest honors in Creative Writing  and received a Chancellor’s Award — the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Prize in Fiction. While at UNC, she was also the recipient of the 2019 Mini-Max Fiction Prize and the George B. Wynne Award in Fiction. 

Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, earned her a residency at The Rensing Center in Pickens, South Carolina, and been published in journals such as SmokeLong Quarterly and Fractured Lit.  She is currently at work on a feminist Southern Gothic novel about an evangelical college in the Blue Ridge Mountains. To keep up with her writing, follow her on Twitter @kayladrutledge.