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Featured Author Karen KingsburyUSA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are more than 15 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 40 novels, ten of which have hit #1 on national lists. Karen's recent title, This Side of Heaven landed in the #5 spot on the CBD Bestsellers Fiction List. Karen's title, Sunset, the final book in the 14 book series about the Baxter Family, hit the New York Times Bestsellers List at #2. Someday, the second to last book in this same series landed #8 on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Karen’s other recent titles, including, Summer, Sunrise and Family hit the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists and quickly broke many of her own personal sales records. Karen won the 2007 Gold Medallion for Best Book of the Year with her novel, Ever After. She also won the 2007 Retailer's Choice Award for Found. Karen was named the 2007 Author of the Year Award from Logos Bookstores. Karen won the “2005 Gold Medallion” and “2005 Retailer Choice” best novel awards for Oceans Apart, and the “2005 Retailer Choice” best series award for her Redemption Series. Her critical success is matched by popular acclaim and correspondence from tens of thousands of readers who have said Karen’s fiction has dramatically changed their lives. These letters and e-testimonials of improved marriages, spiritual awakening and new-found hope enabled her to formally trademark her work Life-Changing Fiction ™. Karen’s novels have been a magnet for film and television producers. One of her earlier books, Deadly Pretender, was made into a CBS Movie-of-the-Week called, “Every Womans Dream,” which starred Kim Cattrall. Several of her recent novels, including; Like Dandelion Dust, A Thousand Tomorrows, Ever After and Gideon's Gift are currently under full-length movie production and option agreements with major motion picture production companies and will be appearing in theaters over the next several years. Karen’s Red Gloves Collection with Warner Books has spurred community service projects across the country that Karen calls Red Gloves Projects. Karen has also created Forever in Fiction as an auction item, giving the winner a chance to name a character in one of Karen’s upcoming books. To date, Forever in Fiction has raised more than $200,000 for charities across the country. Karen earned her degree in journalism in 1986 and worked as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times and the LA Daily News. She went on to write general assignment front-page stories for the Daily News. Her first book was based on a murder story she covered in Los Angeles. She made the transition to inspirational fiction in 1998. A popular speaker at women’s groups around the country, Karen spends her spare time playing with her children, going on dates with her husband and writing songs with several chart-topping Nashville stars. This past Christmas, Karen wrote "Miracle's Happen", a Christmas song sung by Richie McDonald (formerly of Lonestar) which now appears on Richie's cd, If Every Day Could Be Christmas. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their six children, three of whom were adopted from Haiti. They celebrate their faith daily by laughing, loving and living life to the fullest. You can contact Karen at rtnbykk@aol.com or through her website at www.KarenKingsbury.com. I went to high school in Scottsdale, Arizona, the kind of place where every fall a few girls would come back to school with new noses and there were Porsches in the student lot (for the record, I have my original nose, and never had a car until after I was in my twenties). Our football team was renowned statewide—for having the highest average GPA. I was awarded a National Merit Scholarship, and I used it to pay my way to Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. On the list of the biggest party schools in the country, BYU consistently and proudly finishes dead last. I majored in English, but concentrated on literature rather than creative writing, mostly because I didn't consider reading books as work (as long as I was going to be doing something anyway, I might as well get course credit for it, right?). During my college years, I heard many lame jokes about English majors' future careers in the food services industries, and to all the people who made those jokes, I now say, "Ha, ha" (to be heard in the voice of Nelson Muntz). I met my husband, Pancho (his real name is Christiaan, but no one calls him that—it's not a long story, but it is a stupid one, so I'll skip it), when I was four, but we were never anywhere close to being childhood sweethearts. In fact, though we saw each other at least weekly through church activities, I can't recall a single instance when we so much as greeted each other with a friendly wave, let alone exchanged actual words. This may have been for the best, because when we did eventually get around to exchanging words, sixteen years after our first meeting, it only took nine months from the first "hello" to the wedding. Of course, we were able to skip over a lot of the getting to know you parts—many of our conversations would go something like this: "This one time, when I was ten, I broke my hand at a party when—" "Yeah, I know what happened. I was there, remember?" We've been married for ten and a half years now, and have three beautiful, brilliant, wonderful boys who often remind me of chimpanzees on crack. Gabe is eight, Seth is five, and Eli is three. When I started my writing career, they were each two years younger, and, looking back, I don't have any idea how I survived trying to do so many things at once. Twilight is my very first novel, and it has been a crazy, rollercoaster-sans-seatbelts experience from the very beginning. (If you're interested in more about the writing of Twilight, click the "Twilight Series" tab at the top of this lame, rambling autobiography. (Sorry for being Capt. Obvious.)) My favorite authors/biggest influences are (in no particular order) Orson Scott Card, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Maeve Binchy, Charlotte Bronte, Daphne DuMaurier, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Eva Ibbotson, William Goldman, Douglas Adams, Janet Evanovich... the list goes on, but I think I hit the highlights. I can't write without music, and my biggest muse is the band Muse, ironically enough (see link below). My other favorite sources of inspiration are Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Coldplay, The All American Rejects, Travis, The Strokes, Brand New, U2, Kasabian, Jimmy Eat World, and Weezer, to mention a few. 
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