Karen Ross Epp holds a Bachelors degree from Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, and a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.  Karen retired from teaching at the middle school level in 2004. Born and raised in the rolling hills and country of southeastern Iowa, near Mt. Pleasant, she holds a deep appreciation for the land and the sturdy people who work and live there.  Her love of family and history prompted Karen to preserve and honor her brother's memory, and that of the men from the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, who served with him during the Vietnam War in 1969 in her first book, With Love Stan: A Soldier's Letters From Vietnam To The World.  This primary source has made it's way into many high school history departments and classrooms as part of the study of this unpopular war. As a result of her book the Sullivan Brother's Iowa Military Museum in Waterloo, Iowa chose her brother, SP4 Stanley D. Ross, to represent the Vietnam Soldier in their new wing which was dedicated on November 15th, 2008. The museum displays artifacts and stories of all Iowa Veterans from the Civil War through the current conflict in Iraq. Karen was deeply influenced by authors, Bernard Edelman, Dear America, Tim O'Brian, The Things They Carried, and Michael L. Lanning, The Only War We Had.  Karen explains,"Edelman's book was inspiring to me because he used personal letters from Vietnam soldiers in the field. I was rivited as I read each letter and wondered...'Will he or she make it home?'"  Edelman, like O'Brian and Lanning had experienced, first-hand, the Vietnam War. Karen's new book "Corn Rose: A Novel" is now in print and available. It is a Historical Fiction, a Romance, based her mother's life. As the War, WWII, winds down, Rose Calamia must decide if she will follow her husband of three months to rual Iowa or stay in sunny California where she's lived all her life. Los Angeles is a long way, in more ways than one, from the Iowa dirt farm that the love of her life wants to return to. The choice she makes will change her life forever and Rose wonders if it's all worth it.  

Honored at the Sullivan Brother's Iowa Veterans Museum Waterloo, Iowa
My book was placed in the Smithsonian that houses memorabilia left at the Vietnam Wall Memorial. Author Bernard Edelman placed Karen's book and a letter at the Wall.