About Me

It’s said that the only constant is change, and as a multipotentialite, I’ve learned to embrace this truism.

I was born and adopted in Cleveland, Ohio, where I attended Catholic schools and dreamed of living close to the lake in an old house with a big front porch. My first full time job was at the Cleveland Public Library, where I worked while earning a degree in computer science, after which I toiled in an information technology job in the Rubber City for nearly a decade.

In my thirties, I got married, gave birth to two children, and reunited with both of my birth parents. It was a busy time.

In my early forties, while living in metro Atlanta, I earned a Master of Arts in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University. I volunteered as an editor at Lost Daughters, a communal blog written by adopted women, on the board of directors of the Georgia Writers Association, as editor for the Georgia Poetry Society, and as associate editor of the literary journal Flycatcher.

In 2015, I launched the website Adoptee Reading, which currently catalogs more than 400 books written or recommended by adopted people.

In 2018, as I entered into my fifties, I became a small business owner by founding Raised Voice Publishing. Under the imprint Raised Voice Press (2018-2023), my tiny company published four books of creative nonfiction. Six Legs Walking: Notes from an Entomological Life by Elizabeth Bernays won the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir; High Cotton by Kristie Robin Johnson was finalist for the 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award in Memoir.

My current focus is genealogy and family history. After working for six years on building in-depth family trees for myself, my husband, and a few others, I’ve become a serious researcher. I’m gratified whenever I can reconnect lost ancestors via sound genealogical proof, and I’m fascinated by how family history intersects with local, national, and world history. These topics will be on my mind as I resume my writing practice.

I’ve called the Tampa Bay area home for the past ten years. I still don’t have a big front porch, but I can get to the water in under thirty minutes, so I plan to stay.

Formal Bio:

Karen Pickell is the author of An Adoptee Lexicon, a collection of micro essays. She is the founder of Adoptee Reading, an online catalog of books for adopted people, and the former editor-in-chief of Raised Voice Press (2018-2023), an independent micro press that published creative nonfiction. She holds a MA in professional writing from Kennesaw State University. Karen previously served as an editor for the Georgia Poetry Society, the literary journal Flycatcher, and the adoption blog Lost Daughters, as well as on the board of the Georgia Writers Association. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she lived near Atlanta for over a decade before settling in the Tampa Bay area. Her blog Between, as well as links to other published work, can be found at karenpickell.com.