Author of eleven books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, Karen Connelly is a writer, educator and licensed psychotherapist in private practice. She has won national and international prizes for her books, which are published in a dozen countries. In her online institute The Courageous Writers’ Academy, she teaches trauma-informed self-care and professional editing in a supportive communal environment. As a psychotherapist, she specializes in trauma, creativity, and giftedness, and often uses the somatic and brain-based psychotherapy called Observed and Experiential Integration (OEI) in combination with Ericksonian conversational hypnosis.

Karen is the author of the acclaimed novel The Lizard Cage, set in a Burmese prison, which won  Britain’s Orange Broadband New Novelist’s Prize and shortlisted for the U.S.’s Kiriyama Prize. Her most recent book of poetry is Come Cold River and her most recent novel is The Change Room, published by Random House in 2017. The Change Room was called “revolutionary and boundary-breaking” in its treatment of women’s lives, relationships and sexuality.

In 2024 she will publish her twelfth book, about her therapeutic work: The Therapist In The Olive Grove: New and Ancient Paths to Healing Brain-Body-Spirit As well as the Orange Broadband prize, she’s also received the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction, the Pat Lowther Award for poetry, several magazine awards, and a Chalmers Fellowship.

Karen lives with her family in Toronto, Ontario. Her other home is Lesvos, Greece, where she is active in supporting healthcare and human rights initiatives for the refugee population.