How to Get Into the Twin Palms

"It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian. But it was a question of proximity and level of allure. Russians were everywhere in Los Angeles, especially in my neighborhood, and held a certain sense of mystery. I had long attempted to inhabit my Polish skin and was happy to finally crawl out of it. I would never tell my mother. She only thought of them as crooks and beneath us. They felt the same about us, we were beneath them. It had always been a question of who was under whom." Anya is a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, struggling between retaining her parents' Polish culture and the American-ness she was submerged in growing up. She decides to blaze a new path, and attempt to assimilate within her adopted community, epitomized by the exclusive club the Twin Palms. It is Anya's goal to gain entrance to this club. "How To Get Into the Twin Palms" is hilarious and deeply moving, providing a humorous twist on the typical immigrant tale of belonging. Karolina Waclawiak is an assistant editor at "The Believer" whose screenplay adaptation of Sam Lipsyte's "Venus Drive "is currently in development.