Karen Essex

Karen Essex is an American historical novelist, a screenwriter, and journalist. 2Early life and education Essex was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a teenager, she got involved with the theatre and focused her collegiate studies on costume design and theatrical history at Tulane University. She later attended an interdisciplinary graduate program at Vanderbilt University, and in 1999, received an M. F. A. in Writing at Goddard College in Vermont. 2Early film career After college, Essex briefly modeled in Europe before returning to the U. S. where she found an entrée into the film industry as a costume designer. She moved into executive positions, becoming vice-president of a subsidiary of Blake Edwards Entertainment and senior vice-president of Force Ten Productions, a bi-coastal company that financed Broadway, Off-Broadway, and motion pictures. By the early 1990s, she had given birth to her only child and had resigned from film production to pursue a career in writing. 2Early writing career Essex first short story, “Three Audreys,” was published in The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas. Based on that story and on her knowledge of popular music, she was hired by L. A. Style Magazine to write a lengthy profile of the band Los Lobos, which began her career as a music journalist. In 1991, she wrote a cover story for The L. A. Weekly, In Search of Bettie Page, which kicked off the Bettie Page revival and led to a biography of the pin-up queen, Bettie Page: Life of a Pin-Up Legend, written with the reclusive Page’s cooperatio