Karen was born in Australia, raised in England, and came to Canada as a teenager. She has always loved writing. The first thing she ever had published was a paragraph about Captain James Cook in a letter to a children’s magazine when she was seven years old — she lived in Whitby, England, where Captain Cook began his life as a seaman. Since then she’s always carried a journal with her to jot down ideas for future stories. She has had several short stories and articles published. William Meets the Stick Family is her first book for junior readers. She is currently working on a sequel. Karen graduated from the University of Waterloo and currently works at the University of Guelph Library. She has three children and shares a house in Rockwood with a cat named Lilah.