Karen Lynn Williams
Born in 1952 Karen Lynn Williams is the author of over a dozen books for children, including GALIMOTO, a Reading Rainbow Featured Book and one of the New York Times Top Ten Books of the Year. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, Africa, Karen also lived and worked in Haiti, the setting for her highly acclaimed titles CIRCLES OF HOPE and TAP-TAP.
Karen writes with an impassioned voice and deep respect for children living in developing countries, and her books capture the details of everyday life with naturalness and poignancy. She has taught writing at the graduate level at Seton Hill University and Chatham University and in several programs including the Institute of Children’s Literature. She has been a volunteer for the Pittsburgh Refugee Center helping find homes for Sudanese and Somali refugees in the Pittsburgh area where she was inspired to write Four Feet Two Sandals and My name is Sangoel. Most recently Karen has returned to Pittsburgh after living for seven years on the Navajo reservation in Chinle Arizona. There she continued to write, explore the Southwest and learn Navajo weaving as an active member of the community.
Karen writes with equal passion in her chapter books and novels about real life problems faced by children in the United States loosely based on her own childhood and life with her four children. Karen speaks frequently at writers’ conferences and travels widely around the country and the world to meet with children in schools and share her books. Karen currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband Steven and their reservation rescue dog, Reena. She has five grandchildren living around the world.
Learn more at Karen Lynn Williams’s official website
