Born in Melbourne, Australia, Karen Horsley has spent 10 years researching the American South in film, television, and literature. This has included extensive travel in the Deep South (most of it on buses) collecting data on Southern regionalism, the Civil War, the Southern literary tradition, southern culture, and southern religion. She received her PhD from La Trobe University in 2017 and currently teaches Screen Studies and Media Studies at Swinburne University in Melbourne.