Dr. Karen Frances McCarthy specializes in spectral and speculative fiction and its intersections with
cultural, psychological, and religious narratives. She holds a doctorate in English literature from the
University of Birmingham in the UK. She is the author of two books, including Till Death Don’t Us Part
(White Crow Books, 2020), a work of creative non-fiction focused on spectrality. Her monograph, The
Re-enchanted Ghost in Contemporary American Spectral Fiction, is being published by Routledge and will
be available in 2026. She teaches at various institutions, including a creative writing program at
Edinburgh’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre, as well as a course on spectral literature at NYU SPS.