Kara Douglass Thom

Kara Douglass Thom started writing as a young girl, perched on a rock wall in her backyard in El Paso, Texas. Now she writes thousands of miles north in Chaska, Minnesota, (also outdoors, when she can, but not in winter) where she lives with her husband, four children and a dog.

Kara was trained as a journalist (she received her master’s in journalism from Medill’s Northwestern University) and has combined her passion for health, fitness and active living into writing freelance articles and books, including the Go! Go! Sports Girls children’s book series. She is the author of another children’s book, See Mom Run, and two books for adults, Becoming an Ironman: First Encounters with the Ultimate Endurance Event and Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom. She is also the author of the personalized children’s books, Best Sibling Ever and Baking Cookies Together.

Kara is an advocate for children’s and family fitness, and has worked with various organizations that help empower girls through sports. In 2016, she was recognized for writing stories about girls in sports and was invited by the White House to attend a conference on breaking down gender stereotypes in media and toys.

Kara loves writing poetry as much as she loves writing for young people. Her poems have been published in Lucky Jefferson, Sport Literate, The 2020 Texas Poetry Calendar and several online journals. She was the 2018 recipient of the Gaia Fenna Memorial Fellowship at Tofte Lake Center and a finalist for the 2019 Julia Darling Poetry Prize.

Just as she loves many forms of writing, she loves many forms of moving: walking, hiking, running, Nordic skiing, snow shoeing, paddle boarding, biking, and then some. Her sweet spot is where writing and movement overlap.