Discipline: Literature – nonfiction

Karen Houppert

Discipline: Literature – nonfiction
Region: Baltimore, MD
MacDowell Fellowships: 2002
More: www.karenhouppert.net
Karen Houppert is the associate director of the M.A. in Writing Program at Johns Hopkins. She was a contributing writer for The Washington Post magazine for several years and now freelances for many magazines, covering social and political issues. A former staff writer for The Village Voice for nearly 10 years, she has won several awards for her coverage, including a 1991 National Women’s Political Caucus Award for feature writing, a 2003 Newswomen’s Club of New York “Front Page Award,” a 2011 Council on Contemporary Families Media Award for Print, and 2015 and 2016 Maryland/DC/Delaware Press Association Award — as well as bringing in 18 MDDC journalism awards for her staff that year while she served as editor in chief of Baltimore City Paper. She was twice an ASME National Magazine Award finalist and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016 for her essay “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Interrupted.” She has won numerous fellowships, grants and residencies including a 2013 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Reporting Fellow, a 2012 John Jay Public Welfare Reporting Fellow, a 2008 Kaiser Media Fellow, multiple Nation Institute Investigative grants, a 2010 Lucy Grealy memorial writing grant, a Casey Journalism fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship, two Mabou Mines artist residencies, and a New York State Council on the Arts grant. She is the author of three nonfiction books, a contributor to five, and co-author of the Obie-award winning play Boys in the Basement based on her trial coverage of a rape in Glen Ridge, New Jersey — as well as several other plays.

Studios

Mansfield

Karen Houppert worked in the Mansfield studio.

The Helen Coolidge Mansfield Studio was donated by graduates of the Mansfield War Service Classes for Reconstruction Aides. Helen Mansfield helped found the New York MacDowell Club. The small, shingled frame structure with stone foundation was originally fronted on the west side by a neat white picket fence and gate, a garden, and a stone pathway…

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