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About the author:
Karen Propp
(from the publisher)
Karen Propp took almost four years to write In Sickness & In Health; the most difficult
part being how to funnel so many personal and medical events into a narrative that would
have universal appeal. Although some friends and family have expressed surprise at her
willingness to speak openly about the most intimate aspects of her marriage, her husband
has always been a strong supporter of getting the word out. His joke about the book is,
"I suffer; she writes."
Coincidentally, while writing the final drafts of In Sickness & In Health, her
father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was 72, with early stage, non-aggressive
disease. Unlike her husband, who presented an unusual case, her father fit the most
common profile of a prostate cancer sufferer. She accompanied her father and mother to
several of the consultation appointments as he went through the decision making process
for treatment. As a daughter, rather than a spouse, prostate cancer felt much less
threatening.
Karen Propp was born in New Rochelle, New York. Her family lived in Nigeria from
1963-1965, after which she grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. A graduate of Oberlin
College, she went on to receive advanced writing degrees from the University of New
Hampshire and the University of Utah. She was trained first as a poet, studying with
former United States poet laureate Mark Strand and the Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Charles Simic. She published poems in literary magazines (Ploughshares, The Agni
Review, The Antioch Review, The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas, Lilith, The Christian Science
Monitor) and while in her twenties, won awards from The Academy of American Poets.
After receiving her Ph.D. in English and Writing, she returned to the Boston area, and
began teaching at Boston College and The University of New Hampshire. She continued
to write, and shared a house with a group of fine arts painters. When she turned to
writing prose, her first book The Pregnancy Project: Encounters with Reproductive
Therapy was chosen as part of the Duquesne University Press Emerging Writers in
Creative Nonfiction Series. The Pregnancy Project chronicles Karen's odyssey with
infertility treatments to have her son, and raises important questions about women's
experiences with the baby-making business.
She lives outside of Boston with her husband and son.
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