Karen A. Parker is a Black, queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist. They are an author and editor of speculative fiction, and they’re determined to help you take your writing to the next level.

After graduating cum laude from UC Irvine with a BA in English, a Creative Writing Emphasis in Fiction, and a minor in Japanese Language and Literature, they taught English in Gifu, Japan, for three years as an Assistant Language Teacher. Having graduated UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA Program, they researched African oral storytelling traditions and Black liberation for their POC-coded epic fantasy novel, from which an early set of pages serves as their thesis manuscript. Their remastered short story collection, The Art of Capturing Phantoms: Definitive Edition, has received critical acclaim and has earned them not only an Associate level membership with the esteemed Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association but also membership within the prestigious Codex Writers Group.

As a book coach, editor, and educator, they are passionate about amplifying diverse, marginalized, and underrepresented voices wherever and whenever they can. Serving as the editor of the Voice to Books column for The Coachella Review, they gained the leadership skills necessary to facilitate the production of high-quality book reviews across multiple genres. They have since sharpened their editorial skills as a participant in the Sourcebooks BIPOC Editorial Training Program, a mentee in Tessera Editorial’s BIPOC Mentorship Program, a mentor in the LGBTQ+ Editors Association, and an Impact Fellow of Author Accelerator. When they’re not reading, writing, or editing, they enjoy cooking, cartomancy, composing music, critting in Dungeons & Dragons, and completing their video game collection.