A journalist, blogger, and feature writer, Kären enjoys a writing career that has included staff positions with the Tribune Company, the Toronto-Sun Corporation, and other distinguished media outlets. Kären is also a painter with a deep interest in the visual arts.
She and her husband, art historian Arthur Blumenthal, founded Loving Art Partnerships, a firm dedicated to museum excellence and art education in 2007.
With Arthur, Kären co-conducts workshops and European art tours that teach people a novel way of looking, thinking, and writing about art. They currently are co-authoring a book based on the workshop, Loving Art: The Astonishing Pleasures of Slow Looking (to be released in 2011). She is also producing a television series about the Italian old master artists in partnership with i.d.e.a.s.orlando Innovation Studios.
Kären was senior editor for a regional Florida magazine and is a former writer for an NBC television affiliate. She developed the creative writing program for the Disney Institute at Walt Disney World that won the highest awards for guest enjoyment.
Kären was ghost writer for the book, Money as Sacrament (Ten Speed Press, Berkley, CA, 2000) and her short story, “The Fine Art of Losing a Friend” was published in Shifting Gears (Red Pepper Press, 2004). She served as an editor for the catalogue, Cosimo Rosselli: Painter of the Sistine Chapel (Cornell Fine Arts Museum, 2001) that accompanied the international exhibition and has edited numerous other books and publications. Her short story, “Susie Bright, Susie Dark” appeared in the Florida Review in 2000 and another, “The Laughing Girl,” was selected for Scriptorium, the Harvard University literary magazine when she attended the Harvard summer writing program.
Kären is the recipient of the Hamilton Holt Excellence in Writing Award and was awarded the Thomas P. Woodill, III Writing Internship at Rollins College. She is a member of the Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society and has worked on the noted Winter with the Writers Series at Rollins College. Kären will enter the Rollins Masters of Liberal Studies Graduate program in 2012. Her feature writing has been cited by the National Federation of Press Women and The White House.
Kären, a five-generation Florida native, lives in Winter Park, Florida. In addition to Loving Art Partnerships, she is a consultant for MadAboutWords (www.madaboutwords.com) a group of writers and artists dedicated to advancing the literary arts.
