Karen Gettert Shoemaker
Karen Gettert Shoemaker is the author of the novel The Meaning of Names, a One Book One Nebraska selection for 2016 and Omaha Reads selection for 2014. Her award-winning collection of short stories, Night Sounds and Other Stories was published in 2002, and re-published in the United Kingdom in 2006.
Her fiction and poetry have been published in a variety of newspapers and journals, including The New York Times, The London Independent, Prairie Schooner, and South Dakota Review. Her work has been anthologized in A Different Plain: Contemporary Nebraska Fiction Writers; Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry; Times of Sorrow/Times of Grace; and An Untidy Season.
Shoemaker is a graduate of the University of Nebraska where she received a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism, and both a Master's Degree and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. Awards for her writing include a Nebraska Press Association Award for Feature Writing, two Independent Artist Fellowship Awards from the Nebraska Arts Council, and a Nebraska Book Award for Short Fiction.
She has taught creative writing and literature classes for more than 25 years. Since 2016 she has been conducting independent writing workshops and working as an independent manuscript consultant and writing coach. She is the founder and director of Larksong Writers Place.