interviews.
Full interview with The Rumpus
2016
"I believe in that vulnerability. I believe in reaching inside to Mnemosyne, memory’s goddess, having her speak. Tell me why, I say to her. Tell me where and how and when. And sometimes the memories collide and come to rest on my pages. I am grateful."
"I find the same impulse to apprentice herself to curiosity, to self-reflection, and to her own enormous capacity for wonder. Karen is a visionary person who embodies Mary Oliver’s dictum: 'To pay attention: this is our endless and proper work.'"
Full interview with Southern Scribe
2004
"I write because I must, because it is, for me, a spiritual path, a connection to something greater than I am. It gives me power, in terms of voice. It opens my heart. It gives me confidence. It’s what I do best, I hope. The practice of writing makes me say “yes.” I write because I can’t make symphonies, or paint with watercolors. I write because I listen."
"I’ve always been fond of that piece called “The Allegory of the Cave,” by Plato. I like the metaphor of descending into the darkness, ascending to light, and the question of which placed is more “real.” …In writing this memoir, I hope that what I’ve done is reclaim my memories, bring them up into the world of light, make giving birth a reality."
Full interview with Julianna Baggott, Blog
2011
"Let’s just say I have solipsism down to a fine art."
"I wanted to be a physical therapist, but instead I went to the library. A lot. I read every book I could get my hands on, then fell into writing really, really bad poems. I’d sure change that part of the journey. The bad poems."
"For a long while, the necklace I wore and broke was my mother’s, broken and lost in the grass. The necklace of the events that made her and me, years and years, times lost, love lost, people lost (mother and son and me as a mother) was broken and scattered. The only thing that really found the beads and mended the necklace was magic. The lost beads of time were gathered in the way I least imagined."
"I know that I grew up with stories in my heritage. Ballads. Country music songs that tell stories about marriages and wild women and hard work. And I come from generations of tall tale tellers—my father first and foremost among them. So maybe I have the notion deeply embedded in me that I should tell tales about the world, and not necessarily true ones about my own life."