Karen Zarker
As Managing Editor for PopMatters, Karen works with the kind of writers she loves to read; writers with smarts, wit, heart and style -- and a healthy respect for history. Her generalist nature seeks writers, musicians, filmmakers and other storytellers who are traveled (including those with the mind of a traveler, if not the means), educated (academia has its merits, but so do degrees from the school of hard knocks), broad-minded (those who are comfortable with feeling perpetually uncomfortable), intellectual, compassionate, and have a sense of humor (because just about everything is pretty damned funny, even it makes you cry at first). She served as critical reader and editor for some of her professors in college; she is devotedly a writer's reader and a writer's editor. A graduate of Columbia College (Chicago, that is) she is a "post-graduate" reader of most everything but minds. (True story: she was in 'The Closet' with Ellen DeGeneres: https://popm.at/2WIxp7M)