Karen Rile is the author of Winter Music (Little, Brown), a novel set in Philadelphia, and numerous works of fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in literary journals such as The Southern Review, American Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Other Voices, Superstition Review, Tishman Review, and has been shortlisted among The Best American Short Stories. Karen has published articles and essays in The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and others. She is the founding and chief editor of Cleaver, an online literary magazine and book review and the Faculty Director of Cleaver Workshops.

Karen lives in Philadelphia and teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at the University of Pennsylvania. She has also taught at Webster University in St. Louis, LaSalle University in Philadelphia, and at numerous writing conferences. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA from Bennington College, and a certificate in satire from The Second City. She is also the mom of four adult daughters with more interesting careers than her own: an aerialist, a glass artist, a violist, and a playwright.

Subscribe to her newsletter Embodied Resistance to read about stuff we humans deserve to know about our own bodies, with a focus on functional movement and the brain. Follow her on Instagram @whatkindofdog.

Email Karen Rile.