Real Women: Badass Heroines

Karen Karbo is the author of fourteen award-winning novels, memoirs, and works of nonfiction, including the bestselling Kick Ass Women series. Her 2004 memoir, The Stuff of Life, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Books for a Better Life Award finalist. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, Karen’s three adult novels have also been named New York Times Notable Books. Her work has appeared in Elle, Vogue, Outside, the New York Times, Salon, Slate and other magazines. Most recently, she is the author of the national bestseller, In Praise of Difficult Women. Her new book, Yeah, No. Not Happening: How I Swore Off Self-Improvement and Said F*ck It All – and How You Can Too! will appear in May. A long time resident of Portland, she now lives in Collioure, France.

Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of ten books, including Girl Waits with Gun and the rest of the Kopp Sisters series, which are based on the true story of one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs and her two rambunctious sisters. The books are in development with Amazon Studios for a television series. Her popular nonfiction titles include The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants, and Flower Confidential. While they have not been adapted for television, there are a few bars around the world named after The Drunken Botanist, which is even better. She lives in Portland with her husband Scott Brown, a rare book dealer. They own an independent bookstore called Eureka Books, which is so independent that it lives in California while they live in Oregon. Visit her online at amystewart.com.

Elena Passarello is an actor, essayist, and recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Paris Review, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018, and has been translated into German, Italian, French, and Mandarin. She is the author of the essay collections Let Me Clear My Throat and Animals Strike Curious Poses, the latter of which won the 2018 Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction and made the Best Books of 2017 lists in the New York Times, Guardian, and Publisher's Weekly. Passarello teaches creative writing at Oregon State University and appears weekly on the nationally-syndicated PRI radio variety show LiveWire!.