Karla Ann Merino Nielsen

A smiling person with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a gray sweater.

Karla Ann Merino Nielsen

Senior Curator of Literary Collections

Department: Library, Curatorial Department (626-405-2203)

Karla Nielsen, Ph.D., stewards the Library’s archival and print holdings in literature, publishing, journalism, and the performing arts. Before joining The Huntington in 2018, Nielsen worked as curator of literature in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University, where she had an affiliate appointment in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. She obtained her doctorate in comparative literature (Spanish, Latin, Arabic) from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MSLIS from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has worked as an editor for academic and small press publishers, experience that continues to inform her scholarly interests in publishing studies, the interrelatedness of literary form and material format, visual poetics, and the long history of the novel. At The Huntington, she curated the exhibitions “Mapping Fiction” in 2022 and “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis” in 2024.

Publications

Lynell George, author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler (Angel City Press, 2020). Photo courtesy of Lynell George.

President's Series: Inspired by Octavia E. Butler - A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: Lynell George in conversation with William Deverell and Karla Nielsen

Karla Ann Merino Nielsen

Writer Lynell George discusses her forthcoming book, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, and her experience in The Huntington archives, in conversation with William Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute for California and the West and professor of history at USC, and Karla Nielsen, curator of literary collections at The Huntington. WATCH

Verso

Karla Ann Merino Nielsen