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Karen Connelly
Karen Marie Connelly (born 12 March 1969) is a Canadian writer, poet, editor, and psychotherapist. She has written poetry, fiction, and nonfiction works, including The Lizard Cage (2005), which received the Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers. Her books draw on her experiences living in Thailand, Greece, Spain, France, and Myanmar and explores cross-cultural themes, including politics, language, human rights, and trauma recovery. She also works as a registered psychotherapist in Toronto, Canada.
Connelly was born in Calgary, Alberta. At age seventeen, she received a Rotary exchange scholarship to Thailand, where she studied the Thai language and attended high school. After returning to Canada to complete her studies, she moved to Spain, where she lived for nearly two years, supporting herself by teaching English as a second language while writing and photographing her travels. She also studied French and Spanish in Montclar, France, and lived in Greece, primarily on the island of Lesvos. Between 1997 and 1999, she lived near the Thai–Burmese border, where she worked with political dissidents opposing Myanmar's military government, experiences that influenced her book of poetry The Border Surrounds Us (2001), her memoir Burmese Lessons (2010) and her prize-winning novel, The Lizard Cage (2005). Her literary output during those years was influenced by the many human rights testimonies she recorded, and by the protests (and the military's violent response to them) that she witnessed in Rangoon, Myanmar, in 1996.
Connelly's first poetry collection, The Small Words in My Body (1990), received the Pat Lowther Award. Her second book, Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal (1992), won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction. Connelly published further poetry collections including This Brighter Prison (1993), The Disorder of Love (1997), The Border Surrounds Us (2000), and Come Cold River (2013). She also published a volume of letters, One Room in a Castle, about her early years in Europe.
Her novel The Lizard Cage (2005), set in Myanmar, won the Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Burmese Lessons (2010) was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and the B.C. National Award for Non-fiction. Her subsequent novel, The Change Room (2017), examines issues related to gender and sexuality. A forthcoming book, The Therapist in the Olive Grove, is planned for release in 2026.
Connelly has taught creative writing and mentored writers for more than two decades. She was a lead instructor in Creative Nonfiction in the University of Guelph MFA program (2006–2018) and has taught at the Humber School for Writers since 2000. She has also mentored writers through the Canada Council's Literary Mentorship Program and has worked with many authors including Lily Soltani, Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio, and Rebecca Fisseha. From 2008 to 2022, Connelly worked as a private mentor and editor for writers of various genres.
Twice a year, in the spring and fall, Connelly hosts writing and creative healing retreats in a family olive grove in Lesvos, Greece. Connelly brings people into the grove and shares traditional ways of connecting to the energy, history and mythologies of this ancient land. The fall retreat involves creative writing instruction; the May retreat involves mindful relationship to the land, movement practices and self-hypnosis.
Connelly has participated in a range of international literary and academic events. She delivered keynote addresses at the Berlin International Writers Festival in 2018, where she discussed refugee sponsorship in Canada and the political situation in Myanmar at the Canadian Nonfiction Collective Conference at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2013, and throughout Canada and in many places in the U.S., at literary and cultural festivals and events. She was a featured speaker at The Challenges and Achievements of Palestinian Women conference at Henry Ford Community College in Michigan in 2011 and at the Freedom to Write Literary Festival at Brown University in 2009.[citation needed]
She has held several temporary academic and literary appointments, including writer-in-residence at the Toronto Reference Library in 2008 and Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor in Canadian Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto in 2009. Earlier, she taught creative writing at York University, organized and hosted the Banff Centre's inaugural Memoir Residency and lectured on contemporary events in Myanmar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2006.
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Karen Connelly
Karen Marie Connelly (born 12 March 1969) is a Canadian writer, poet, editor, and psychotherapist. She has written poetry, fiction, and nonfiction works, including The Lizard Cage (2005), which received the Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers. Her books draw on her experiences living in Thailand, Greece, Spain, France, and Myanmar and explores cross-cultural themes, including politics, language, human rights, and trauma recovery. She also works as a registered psychotherapist in Toronto, Canada.
Connelly was born in Calgary, Alberta. At age seventeen, she received a Rotary exchange scholarship to Thailand, where she studied the Thai language and attended high school. After returning to Canada to complete her studies, she moved to Spain, where she lived for nearly two years, supporting herself by teaching English as a second language while writing and photographing her travels. She also studied French and Spanish in Montclar, France, and lived in Greece, primarily on the island of Lesvos. Between 1997 and 1999, she lived near the Thai–Burmese border, where she worked with political dissidents opposing Myanmar's military government, experiences that influenced her book of poetry The Border Surrounds Us (2001), her memoir Burmese Lessons (2010) and her prize-winning novel, The Lizard Cage (2005). Her literary output during those years was influenced by the many human rights testimonies she recorded, and by the protests (and the military's violent response to them) that she witnessed in Rangoon, Myanmar, in 1996.
Connelly's first poetry collection, The Small Words in My Body (1990), received the Pat Lowther Award. Her second book, Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal (1992), won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction. Connelly published further poetry collections including This Brighter Prison (1993), The Disorder of Love (1997), The Border Surrounds Us (2000), and Come Cold River (2013). She also published a volume of letters, One Room in a Castle, about her early years in Europe.
Her novel The Lizard Cage (2005), set in Myanmar, won the Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Burmese Lessons (2010) was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and the B.C. National Award for Non-fiction. Her subsequent novel, The Change Room (2017), examines issues related to gender and sexuality. A forthcoming book, The Therapist in the Olive Grove, is planned for release in 2026.
Connelly has taught creative writing and mentored writers for more than two decades. She was a lead instructor in Creative Nonfiction in the University of Guelph MFA program (2006–2018) and has taught at the Humber School for Writers since 2000. She has also mentored writers through the Canada Council's Literary Mentorship Program and has worked with many authors including Lily Soltani, Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio, and Rebecca Fisseha. From 2008 to 2022, Connelly worked as a private mentor and editor for writers of various genres.
Twice a year, in the spring and fall, Connelly hosts writing and creative healing retreats in a family olive grove in Lesvos, Greece. Connelly brings people into the grove and shares traditional ways of connecting to the energy, history and mythologies of this ancient land. The fall retreat involves creative writing instruction; the May retreat involves mindful relationship to the land, movement practices and self-hypnosis.
Connelly has participated in a range of international literary and academic events. She delivered keynote addresses at the Berlin International Writers Festival in 2018, where she discussed refugee sponsorship in Canada and the political situation in Myanmar at the Canadian Nonfiction Collective Conference at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2013, and throughout Canada and in many places in the U.S., at literary and cultural festivals and events. She was a featured speaker at The Challenges and Achievements of Palestinian Women conference at Henry Ford Community College in Michigan in 2011 and at the Freedom to Write Literary Festival at Brown University in 2009.[citation needed]
She has held several temporary academic and literary appointments, including writer-in-residence at the Toronto Reference Library in 2008 and Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor in Canadian Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto in 2009. Earlier, she taught creative writing at York University, organized and hosted the Banff Centre's inaugural Memoir Residency and lectured on contemporary events in Myanmar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2006.