Karen Wallace

Karen Wallace has written over three hundred books for children, both fiction and nonfiction, from picture books, through beginner readers to pre-teen and young adult novels. Her first natural history picture book Think of an Eel (Walker, 1992) won awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Her first novel Raspberries on the Yangtze (Simon & Schuster, 2002), was short listed for the Guardian fiction prize.

Karen also writes comic fiction and historical adventure books. Her favourite periods are Tudor and Edwardian.

Script writing uses a different muscle but it’s still about storytelling and Karen has worked with the BBC, Aardman Animations and the Jim Henson Company among others.

Karen was born in Canada and spent her childhood in rural Quebec messing about on the river and climbing trees. She came to England around the time the Beatles got famous and went to school and university in London.

‘I have done all kinds of jobs. I’ve worked in public relations and run my own publishing company. I’ve made pizzas and sung cabaret and bluegrass music. But when I am asked whether I have always wanted to be a writer, I say yes. Making up stories is what I have done all my life.’

Karen lives in Herefordshire with the writer Sam Llewellyn and two enormous Maine Coon cats called Jack and Billy.

She is currently working on a series of animal books for young children and a novel set in England during World War Two.