Karen Winters

Karen Winters Schwartz was born and raised in Mansfield, Ohio. She wrote her first truly good story at age seven. Her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Schneider, publicly and falsely accused her of plagiarism. She did not write again for forty years.\nHer widely praised novels include Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?: A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder, 2010; Reis’s Pieces: Love, Loss, and Schizophrenia, 2012; and The Chocolate Debacle, 2014 (Goodman Beck Publishing). As a writer and a mental health advocate, she is a sought-after speaker at events and conferences across the country.\nEducated at The Ohio State University, Karen and her husband moved to the Central New York Finger Lakes region where they raised two daughters and shared a career in optometry. She now splits her time between Central New York, a small village in Belize, and traveling the earth in search of the many creatures with whom she has the honor of sharing this world. \n\n