As a child, Karen lived in Eastern Kentucky in a one-room shack near the temperamental Licking River. In the 1950s, her father uprooted the family from Appalachia and deposited them in Bound Brook, New Jersey, situated just off an outlet of the Raritan River. 

 

During college in the tumultuous mid-sixties,

Karen migrated to Berkeley, California, where

she dedicated herself to working in the anti-war movement and for international human rights. Intent on becoming a counterpoint to the US military presence in Vietnam, she joined the Peace Corps, serving in Thailand. There she immersed herself in the cultures along the mighty Mekong River.

 

 

 

By the 1970’s Karen finally settled in Greenwich Village, between the Hudson River and the East River, on the Isle of Manhattan. She began to focus her personal and professional energy on issues of concern to women, including founding the Women’s Counseling and Consulting Services. Eventually, she flowed in additional directions, attaining a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and a marriage that created an amazing daughter, Jaime Lyn   

Beatty (JLynBeatty.com/home).

 

For more than two decades, Karen taught for the Counseling Department of John Jay College of the City University of New York. She also served as a trauma-informed counselor for veterans, immigrants, firefighters and police officers. Over 30 of her short stories and essays have appeared in various literary journals and online publications, including Eureka Literary Magazine, Snowy Egret, Books Ireland, and Mud Season Review.