Award-winning editor, Karen Yin joins us to discuss her latest book, The Conscious Style Guide: A Flexible Approach to Language That Includes, Respects, and Empowers (Little, Brown Spark). She provides insight and guidance on how to be more equitable in the way we communicate.

Karen explains that this is not a book of dos and don'ts. In fact, it's the opposite of that! This book is a cornerstone guide that teaches us to be more aware and to use critical thinking as language continually evolves.

She has also written several stories for children, including Whole Whale (Barefoot Books), So Not Ghoul (Page Street Kids), Doug the Pug and the Kindness Crew (Scholastic), Nice to Eat You (Scholastic), and “My Kinda Sorta Badass Move” (Boundless: Twenty Voices Celebrating Multicultural and Multiracial Identities, Inkyard). Acclaim for her writing includes a 2021 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, a 2020 SCBWI/Smithsonian Nonfiction Grant, selection of her flash fiction by the Los Angeles Public Library for its permanent collection in 2020, and a 2015 Lambda Literary Fellowship.

Karen was also the winner of the 2017 ACES Robinson Prize (Editor of the Year). She founded several acclaimed digital resources, including Conscious Style Guide, The Conscious Language Newsletter, and the Editors of Color Database. Conscious Style Guide was named by Poynter as one of the top tools for journalists in 2018 and is recommended by Poets & Writers, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and countless others, including NASA. The Editors of Color Database was one of Writer’s Digest’s Best Websites for Writers in 2023. Karen serves on the advisory board of The Chicago Manual of Style.

Find her online at KarenYin.com and her book recommendations at DiversePictureBooks.com.

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