Karen McLeod

Karen McLeod is a writer, performer, creative writing tutor and writer-in-residence at Bookseller Crow bookshop in London. After attending an Arvon Course at Lumb bank, Ali Smith championed Karen’s writing. At the time she was working as cabin crew and she went on to write her debut novel, In Search of the Missing Eyelash in hotel rooms across the globe. In Search of the Missing Eyelash, was published by Jonathan Cape. It won the Betty Trask Award and was translated widely. Coming full circle, her memoir, Lifting Off (Muswell Press, June 2024) – also classed as autofiction due to the blank spots in her past – is about the years she worked as long-haul cabin crew and how later she went into free-fall. When Karen’s not writing, or talking about writing, she can be found treading the creaky boards at theatres, cabaret clubs and pubs as her comedy alter ego, the self-appointed Poet Laureate of Penge, Barbara Brownskirt.