Local author Karin Gertsch will share her journey from guidebook writer to children's book author to publishing Five Wishes.

Karin is a retired educator, who lives with her husband Emil on a Christmas tree farm in Essex, Massachusetts. The author’s first novel, Five Wishes, was published by Atmosphere Press, Austin, Texas, and was released on June 13, 2023. In 1997, her book, Cape Ann & Vicinity: A Guide for Residents and Visitors, was published by Acorn Press just in time for the City of Gloucester’s 375th anniversary. It was the first guidebook for this historic area.

Fast forward to 2019, and Austin Macauley Publishers in New York produced her first children’s book, Flora Has an Adventure; it is the first book in a series. Also in 2019, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis published her short story, Dependence Day, in their 50th anniversary anthology honoring the anniversary of Slaughterhouse Five. Her short story, After World War II, was published by Hawai’i Pacific Review in 2020.

Karin is working on several more Flora children’s stories as well as an adult creative non-fiction book, Monika’s Journey. When not writing or reading, the author enjoys tending to her garden and baking and cooking. Spending time outdoors with her rescue pup, Oliver, is a daily event!