About Karen

Karen Comer is an author, freelance editor and speaker. She’s represented by Danielle Binks at Jacinta di Mase Management. She teaches a ten-month online writing course and offers mentoring and editing to writers at all stages of their career. She has worked in educational publishing and was the editor for children’s art magazine BIG. She is represented by Booked Out Speakers Agency, and presents workshops to primary school and secondary school students.

Karen’s latest book is Once Upon Tomorrow, published by Hachette in April 2026. A YA verse novel, it focuses on the future, libraries, climate change, fairytales and family.

Her young adult verse novel, Grace Notes, was published by Hachette in February 2023. Grace Notes won the CBCA’S Book of the Year for Older Readers 2024 and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adults and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Ethel Turner’s Prize for Young People’s Literature 2024.

Her middle-grade verse novel, Sunshine on Vinegar Street, was published by Allen & Unwin in June 2023. Sunshine on Vinegar Street won the Queensland Literary Awards for the Children’s Book Award 2024 and was a CBCA notable for Younger Readers.

Karen hopes to introduce more readers to the lyrical wonders of verse novels.

She lives in Melbourne with her family.