Books & Public Speaking
The Change Room
Novel | Random House Canada, 2017
Nominated for Best Fiction and Best Bi-Writer of the Year 2017 (U.S. Annual BiSexual Book Award)
Come Cold River
Poetry | 2013
This is a secret book for me. It took me several years to add this title to my list of published books.
Burmese Lessons: a love story
Random House Canada, 2009
Finalist for the 2009 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Shortlisted for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction.
The Lizard Cage
Novel | Random House Canada 2005
Winner of the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers
The Border Surrounds Us
Poetry | McClelland and Stewart, 2001
Grace and Poison
Poetry and essay | Turnstone Press, 2001
The Disorder of Love
Gutter Press, 1997
One Room In A Castle
This Brighter Prison
Brick Books, London, 1993
Touch The Dragon
Turnstone Press, 1992
Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
The Small Words In My Body
Poetry | Kalamalka Press, 1990
Author of twelve books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, Karen Connelly is a writer, educator and somatic counsellor in private practice in Toronto, Canada.
Public Speaking Love!
I’ve given talks, lectures, workshops, performances, readings from my work and about creativity all over the world. I’m a gifted, funny and at time challenging public speaker. No one falls asleep.
Please be in touch with me directly if you’d like me to address your book club or prepare a live workshop or masterclass for your community organization, company or academic institution. I do not offer free services; my appearance rates for small groups of private individuals and community groups is $400 US; for companies and universities it is $1000 US and up, depending upon the institution.
About The Change Room
The Change Room is a sexually vivid, complicated book about relationships, marriage, bisexuality, being a mother, swimming and . . . using our words. It depicts love and sex between husband and wife, between a sex worker and her clients, between two women. It’s a sexy, loving, often funny book that I’m very proud of—even though it was also an ignored and criticized book.
It’s the only book I’ve written that lost me friends. Even today, women are not supposed to write honestly about our own feminine sexuality. Despite having one of the most famous American literary publishers in the world, I could not get this novel published in the U.S., land of the free, and book censorship. It was released in the U.S. under the Canadian PenguinRandomHouse imprint.
It is an imperfect novel because I did not want to do to my characters what I, too, have always resisted: I didn’t want to make them well-behaved and predictable. Life is gorgeous, complicated, filled with the many passions (and annoyances!) of being alive in this beautiful, burning, flooding world . . .
About the Author
Former professor in the Graduate School at the University of Guelph, a long-time creativity mentor at Humber College, Karen leads The Courage Room Collective, an online membership that explores creativity and healing through writing and community. Twice a year, in September and April, Karen leads intrepid writers in the healing and writing experience that is The Courageous Writers’ Academy.
She is the author of the acclaimed novel The Lizard Cage, set in a prison in Burma, winner of Britain’s Orange Broadband New Novelist’s Prize and shortlisted for the U.S.’s Kiriyama Prize. Her most recent novel is The Change Room, published by Random House in 2017. The Change Room was called “revolutionary and boundary-breaking” in its treatment of women’s lives, relationships and sexuality.
In 2024 she will publish her twelfth book I’ll See You in The Courage Room: Healing trauma brain, body and spirit. As well as the Orange Broadband prize, she’s received the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction, the Pat Lowther Award for poetry, several national magazine awards, a Chalmers Fellowship, and other national and international prize nominations for her books. Her poetry, novels, and nonfiction books are published in over a dozen countries and languages.
Karen lives with her family in Toronto, Ontario. Her other home is Lesvos, Greece, where she is active in supporting several healthcare initiatives for the refugees at the Kara Tepes and (former) Moria Refugee Camps.