Kayla Rae Whitaker’s work has been published in The Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, and others. Her first novel, The Animators, was named a best book of 2017 by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Kirkus, and BookPage. Her nationally bestselling second novel, Returns and Exchanges, was published by Random House in May 2026 and received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. A Kentucky native, she writes and teaches in Queens, New York.