One foot in the adult world....

Karen Russell, who visits February 10th, discusses her attraction to the adolescent perspective with Elizbeth Floyd Mair on the Times Union "Books" page:

"[With regard to] destabilizing the ratio between the real and the fantastic, I think children or young adults are kind of poised between worlds. They still have access to fairy-tale explanations, supernatural explanations, but they also have one foot in the adult world. They're trying to find their bearings, trying to decide what reality really is. Narratively, that's exciting because it means you can stage a drama that's really sort of existential -- involving characters who are trying to figure out what home is, what love is. Something about the slipperiness of that time, that transition, is exciting to me. And I don't think anybody ever stops asking those questions, you know?"