ABOUT KAREN
Karen Ginnane is a Melbourne-based author for middle grade and young adult readers. Penguin Random House Australia published her debut novel, When Days Tilt, in July 2021 and the sequel, When Souls Tear, in July 2022. These historical fantasy adventures, set in Victorian London and a parallel city, are part of The Time Catchers series. She is represented by Danielle Binks.
Karen self-published ahead of the curve at the age of ten in her home town of Perth in Western Australia. Since A Horse Named Ginger was released, Karen has been variously employed as a freelance copywriter, a marketing director for Paramount Pictures in London, a grain weighbridge operator in rural WA, a swimming teacher, a life model, a deckhand in Chile and an English teacher in Japan. She's also taught creative writing and bellydance.
Karen received an Invited Residency to Varuna Writer's House in 2020 for When Souls Tear, her second book in The Time Catchers series, which she took in 2021 (thanks to Covid!).
She's interested in looking at old stories in new ways, and in stories that explore diverse or historically silenced voices. She's found that the strange and tilted never seem to be far from the surface, and that 'place' keeps muscling in on the traditional territory of 'character.'
Other things she cares about:
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The everyday miracle of nature, of which we are custodians. Trees, especially - the bigger the better, without wanting to appear size-ist. The deep importance of land as kin, not just resource.
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Walking - in Big Mama Nature, of course (see above) but also as a flaneur - a wanderer and discoverer of city scapes and other places.
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Dancing, all kinds.
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Travel, both far and near. It's not always about distance, but about how you immerse yourself in wherever you are.
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Journeys into other lives, also known as reading.
Karen also runs a niche tour operator business with her husband, who is a Londoner, and lives in Melbourne with him and their two Anglo-Australian children. And two cats.
For more about me, click here.
Dayna Smith from #LoveOzYa talks feisty feminism, alternate worlds and magic with Karen Ginnane.
Karen Ginnane, Deborah Abela and Shivaun Plozza take over the Words and Nerds podcast to talk all things magic and world building - find wherever you listen to your podcasts
Travel through hidden realms with Karen Ginnane in conversation with Amie Kaufman. The teen hero of Ginnane's debut novel swoops through Victorian-era London to a parallel city to solve her mother's disappearance. Recorded for MWF in 2021.
How curly is curly? Click here to find out as Kids' Book Review put Karen Ginnane on the spot!