to jewish right is karen russell whose work has appeared in the best american short stories, "the new yorker," oxford american, and zoetrope. karen was also recently chosen as one of the 20 best writers under 40 in "the new yorker." she is the author of lucy's home for girls raised by wolves. and she is also the author of a new brilliant novel which i'm sure you have read called swamp land via. finally, to karen's right is francine prose was the author for 25 books of fiction and nonfiction, including bigfoot dreams, primitive people, how to read like a writer and most recently my new american life. sorry, here's my dana white moment. i have to do this for karen as well. pretty scary. since march 2007 to quite recently she was the president of the pan american center. she's recipient of a guggenheim fellowship and i sat on the board of their own award. she's also written nonfiction books about anne frank and gluttony. two different books. [laughter] and she's a distinguished professor. one sure announcement before we get started. condition today's panel we have a party tomorrow night