Karen Martin

Karen Martin is a fiction writer, collage artist and professional editor. In 2010, she published her first stories in Itch, a South African-based multimedia online journal. In 2011, she was awarded a fellowship to Syracuse University’s three-year creative writing MFA program. In 2012, she was artist-in-residence at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. In 2013, she was awarded the Allen and Nirelle Galson Prize for Fiction by Stone Canoe, a journal that showcases artists and writers with ties to Upstate New York. Karen has initiated and developed several projects for gala, including Balancing Act, a book and exhibition of South African lgbti youth life stories, and Till the Time of Trial, a booklet featuring the prison letters of lgbti and hiv/aids activist Simon Nkoli. She is the co-editor of Sex and Politics, a collection of essays, memoirs and archival documents about the South African lgbti rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle. She is a member of the gala board of trustees.