Karen Russell is a writer whose debut novel, Swamplandia, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was published in 2006, for which she was named a National Book Foundation "5-Under-35" young writer honoree. Virtuosic irrealist.

“Hopes were wallflowers.  Hopes hugged the perimeter of a dance floor in your brain, tugging at their party lace, all perfume and hems and doomed expectation. They fanned their dance cards, these guests that pressed against the walls of your heart.”