About Karen Olesch

Karen Olesch is a writer whose work spans personal essays, cultural commentary, and literary exploration of identity, memory, and transformation. Her published essays—featured in Chicago Parent, LA Parent Magazine, Parenthoodweb, Personal Journaling Magazine, and The Generator—reflect a thoughtful, accessible voice grounded in real life, curiosity, and human connection.

Much of Karen’s early published work explores the everyday experiences that shape us: parenting, relationships, play, balance, and the quiet questions that surface beneath ordinary routines. These pieces are marked by warmth, humor, and a deep respect for lived experience—an approach that continues to inform her evolving literary work.

In recent years, Karen’s writing has expanded toward longer-form fiction and historically rooted narratives. Drawing on extensive genealogical research, European history, and spiritual study, she is now focused on stories that examine inherited memory, family secrecy, displacement, and the search for meaning across generations. Her current projects explore how identity is shaped not only by what we are told, but by what remains hidden—and how reclaiming truth can become an act of healing.

Alongside her writing, Karen is a certified yoga and meditation teacher SacredCircleFellowship.com and has been teaching college classes in writing and philosophy for the last 30 years. She has an MA in Philosophy, a Certificate of Graduate Studies in religion, and her MA in English and Creative Writing is in progress.

She is particularly interested in the intersection of history and inner life: how spiritual frameworks, embodied awareness, and ancestral memory can coexist within compelling, character-driven stories.

Karen’s future work is devoted to historical and speculative fiction that bridges the personal and the collective, giving voice to women navigating silence, survival, and self-discovery. Through her writing, she aims to create stories that function as maps—guiding readers through the past toward clarity, compassion, and transformation.

She welcomes thoughtful conversation and connection with readers.