Kari Shemwell was born and raised in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She received her undergraduate degrees from Murray State University and an MFA degree from Sierra Nevada College with a concentration in fiction. She worked in the film industry for 8 years, and she is currently writing a novel about power dynamics in Hollywood. She is also a professor of creative writing at Murray State University. Her work has previously been featured in the Masters Review anthology of emerging writers, the Stonecoast Review, Gulf Stream Lit Mag, Berfrois, the Columbia College Literary Review, and is forthcoming in the Lascaux Review prize anthology.