Karen Valley is a writer living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, where she is a frequent contributor, the New York Times, O Magazine, Glamour, Fast Company, and EW, where she spent fifteen years writing about culture. Her latest book, The Swans of Harlem, tells the forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now.