Short Biography:
Karen Tremmel was born and raised in the Tennessee Valley at the foot of Lookout Mountain, surrounded by dramatic scenes of nature and wildlife, juxtaposed with steel mills, dams, farming and fragments of the Civil War. Karen relocated to Canada where she spent her time back to nature exploring the Canadian Rockies and the prairies of Alberta, researching, painting and writing about her intimate experiences with wildlife and the natural world.

Karen has illustrated and completed writing her first novel, In Lily Shadows and has begun to write her second novel. For over eleven years she has written and illustrated a weekly nature column, Back to Nature for newspapers in Florida where she continues to paint and teach in her studio.

Critical Description of Work:
Since a young girl I?ve existed with my feet in direct contact with the bare earth, toes in the cold stream and eyes bouncing back and forth from bird, cloud, bee, flower, sunrise and sunset. It is essential for me to be surrounded by nature. Even while in a restaurant I will request the window seat. Nature is my inspiration, education, passion, power, my core being. It is just the way it is. As I seem to have no choice whether to write or not...then nature seems to be a natural choice of subject.