Author / Illustrator

  • Karen Salyer McElmurray writes both fiction and creative nonfiction. Her memoir, Surrendered Child, won the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and was listed as a “notable book” by the National Book Critics Circle. She is also the author of the novels Motel of the Stars, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, Wanting Radiance, and most recently a collection of essays titled Voice Lessons. She is co-editor, along with Adrian Blevins, of Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean. Her essays have won the Annie Dillard Prize, the New Southerner Prize, the Orison Magazine Anthology Award and have several times been Notable in Best American Essays.