Karen writes and edits as Karen Peterson Butterworth. She has published six non-fiction and poetry books, and her short fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and reviews have appeared in numerous NZ and overseas journals and anthologies and been broadcast. She speaks basic conversational Maaori and sometimes writes in Te Reo. Placed in literary competitions in four countries, she won the 2001 BNZ/Katherine Mansfield Essay prize and the 2011 NZSA Bay of Plenty Branch Memoir and Local History Competition, inter alia. She has an international reputation in Japanese short poetic forms, mainly haiku. Born in Catlins, South Otago, Karen began her freelance writing and editing career after careers as a journalist, teacher, social and economic researcher, union worker, and orchardist. (Full CV including literary record available on request). Now in her eighties, and with a disability limiting travel, she undertakes copy and content editing, precis-writing, and journalism assignments using telephone and PC, and writes creatively for pleasure and to record her past life.

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