Karen Salyer McElmurray is a lover of lakes, cats, sunlight and her native Appalachian tongue. She writes both fiction and creative nonfiction; her memoir, Surrendered Child, won the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and was listed asa “notable book” by the National Book Critics Circle. She is also the author of Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven (University of Georgia Press), a novel that won the Lillie Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing and, most recently, The Motel of the Stars, part of the 2009 Linda Bruckheirmer Series from Sarabande Books. She has an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Virginia, an MA in Creative Writing from Hollins University, and a PhD from the University of Georgia, where she studied American Literature and Fiction Writing. Her work has received numerous awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She is frequently visiting writer and lecturer at a variety of programs and reading series including, this summer and fall, 2010, Hindman Settlement School and Indiana University at Bloomington. McElmurray has just completed a new novel called Wanting Inez, which almost ready to enter the world on its own.