Karen Lee Oliver was born on October 1, 1959 in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York to two wonderful parents, Leoneida Oliver, her mother and Robert Fuller Oliver, her father. She grew up in rural upstate New York until the age of 13 when she was awarded a scholarship for ballet study in New York City. She remained in New York City, graduating from Rhodes Preparatory School with a Regents Scholarship in 1976. She graduated from the State University of New York at Albany in 1981. She began writing poetry in 1986 and has written a total of five books for Xlibris Corporation. They are, “Pergola”, copyright 2002, “Tales From the Mirwood,” copyright 2005, “Tranquility, Solitude and Other Poems,” copyright 2015 “Flights From Fairyland,” copyright 2017 and this particular work, “Thoughts.”
Thoughts was written during a period of grief and illness Karen suffered after the death of her mother on January 11, 2018. She wanted this book to be a dedication as well as a memorial to her mother who had been her life-long friend and mentor.