BIOGRAPHY
Orphaned
in Greenwich Village and adopted by New York City schoolteachers, Kari Caulfield
has borrowed heavily from her incredibly outrageous life to pen this gripping
novel. Due to
an irrepressible wanderlust, Kari Caulfield spent her teens and early twenties
traveling throughout the United States and Europe with a backpack on her back.
She was searching for the intangible part of herself that was lost at birth. A
self-styled artist, writer, musician, poet, a perpetual student and an attorney,
it is no wonder when Kari uncovered her roots there was creativity in her blood.
A direct descendant
of the famed French poet, novelist, and literary critic, Theophile Gautier, when
Kari Caulfield found her birth father, Stephen Gautier Fisher, living with his
lover on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, she learned that her own predilection
with Theophile Gautiers famous doctrine, Art for Arts sake, (lart
pour lart) was no coincidenceit is encoded on her DNA. Kari
located her young birth mother as her birth mother was about to depart for an
extended trip to Majorca, Spain, and she learned, much to her surprise, that she
also came from a circus-like troupe of show-biz personalities who had lived all
over the world. Among other things, her great-aunts were a vaudevillian contortionist
act known as "The Dunn Sisters," and her grand father was press agent
to D.W. Griffith when The Birth of a Nation opened in New York. A member
of The Daughters of the American Revolution and the Mayflower Society, her maternal
grandmothers Philadelphia family owned the circus where her grand fathers
family was employed. Kari
Caulfields early life provided just the right balance of intellectual stimulation,
freedom and stability. Her Queens, New York home was center-stage to continuous,
raucous gatherings, and private academic debates were a constant source of entertainment.
Both of Karis adoptive parents were elected to public office, and, early
on, her father had a daily radio show on WNYE. When Karis sister, who was
also adopted, needed a double, kidney/pancreas transplant due to diabetes, Kari
volunteered to be the donor but was not a suitable match. Karis
college career suffered a few false starts due to her preoccupation with exploring,
but, eventually, lack of money and a broken down van in the Nevada desert convinced
her to pursue a degree in earnest. She left St. Johns University in Queens,
New York, where she began as a music major, and graduated with honors from C.W.
Post Center of Long Island University, receiving a B.A. in English Literature
and a minor degree in the Geological Sciences. After graduation--and an array
of odd jobs including bartending, waitress positions and flea-marketing, Kari
returned to CUNY Law School at Queens College where she obtained her Juris Doctor
degree. She is currently a practicing attorney who served a three year term as
a prosecutor for the District Attorney of Queens County, New York. Throughout
the course of Karis life the one constant has been her love of writing prose,
lyrics and poetry. Well-worn notebooks and scraps of paper detail her every experience.
Recently, while on the island of Santorini in Greece, Kari was in what she calls
a life-affirming accident when the motor-bike she was driving nearly skid off
a cliff. Kari was rendered unconscious and air-lifted to the nearby island of
Crete, where she remained in a hospital there for eight days. Among other things,
she suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs, and a massive loss of blood, but
she awoke with a new sense of joy and wonder for the world and a feeling of complete
renewal. A person who has studied world religions, ancient spirituality, various
forms of Buddhism and the tarot, Kari has always believed in the possibility of
rebirth or transformation through near death experiences, but, she says, no one
ever expects divine providence to come knocking on their door. Karis
very extended family is spread throughout the United States, Canada, and Western
Europe. When shes home in New York, Kari enjoys entertaining, cooking, gardening,
learning language on tape, reading and concerts. She is a member of several Manhattan
writers groups and she has been a volunteer speaker on adoption panels.
Kari lives on Long Island with her long-term partner and also spends time at her
familys brownstone in Manhattan. Finding
her roots did not end her quest. Quite the contrary, as Pretty Blue makes
clear, Kari Caulfields voyage of discovery has only just begun.
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