# Karen Stollznow

Karen Stollznow (born 12 August 1976) is an Australian-American author, linguist, public speaker, and podcaster. Her books include Bitch: The Journey of a Word, Missed Conceptions: How We Make Sense of Infertility, On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present, The Language of Discrimination, God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States, Haunting America, Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic, Hits and Mrs, and Would You Believe It?: Mysterious Tales From People You'd Least Expect. Stollznow also writes short fiction, including the title Fisher's Ghost and Other Stories, and she is a host on the podcast Monster Talk with Blake Smith. She has written for many popular publications, including The Conversation and Psychology Today. Stollznow has also appeared as an expert on many TV shows, including the History Channel's History's Greatest Mysteries and Netflix's Files of the Unexplained.

## Career

A student of linguistics and history at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, she received First Class Honors in Linguistics, and went on to a PhD in the area of Lexical Semantics. She graduated with her doctorate in 2007. In 2004, she relocated to California to become a Visiting Student Researcher with the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2005, she became a Researcher for the Script Encoding Initiative, a joint project between the UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics, and the Unicode Consortium. She is currently a researcher in the Department of Linguistics at Griffith University and also affiliated with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.
From 1997 to 2009, Stollznow was a prominent investigator and writer for the Australian Skeptics and served as Editor of their magazine The Skeptic for which she also wrote many articles. She has also written for publications such as Australasian Science, Neucleus, Skeptical Inquirer, and others.
Between 2009 and 2011 she wrote the Naked Skeptic column for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), now rebranded as The Good Word for Skeptical Inquirer. In 2010 she began as the Bad Language columnist for Skeptic. She has been a host of the Skeptics Society's MonsterTalk podcast since its beginning in 2009 and in 2010 she became a host of the Center for Inquiry's Point of Inquiry podcast as well. In 2011 she presented a talk at the Colorado Springs SkeptiCamp on Making (Up) History, and at the Denver/Boulder SkeptiCamp on Braco the Gazer. In 2012 she was a speaker at The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, giving a talk titled "Prediction and Language", and in 2013 giving a talk titled "What an Excellent Day for an Exorcism".
Stollznow was also a Research Fellow for the James Randi Educational Foundation. She is a Contributing Editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

## Selected publications

* Stollznow, Karen (2017). The Language of Discrimination. Lincom GmbH. ISBN 978-3862887903
* Stollznow, Karen (2017). Would You Believe It?: Mysterious Tales From People You'd Least Expect. Amazon Digital Services. ASIN B01MQVE2Z5
* Stollznow, Karen (2016). Hits and Mrs. Amazon Digital Services. ASIN B01BJGUCXI
* Stollznow, Karen (2014). Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic. ISBN 978-1137404855
* Stollznow, Karen (2013). God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States. ISBN 978-1939578006
* Stollznow, Karen (2013). Haunting America. James Randi Educational Foundation. ASIN B00DSQVBAQ.
* Stollznow, Karen (2010). Skepticism and the Paranormal: A Rose By Any Other Name. In Bonett, W. (Ed.) The Australian Book of Atheism. Scribe Publications ISBN 1921640766 OCLC 653346301
* Stollznow, Karen (June 2009), "The Writing's on the Wall for the World's Endangered Writing Systems", The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Technical Communication Southern Communicator (17): 12–13
* Stollznow, Karen (2009), "Keith Allan & Kate Burridge, Forbidden words: Taboo and the censoring of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.", Language in Society, 38 (1): 135–136, doi:10.1017/s0047404508090234, OCLC 4668942846, S2CID 145114519
* Stollznow, Karen (2008), "Dehumanisation in language and thought", Journal of Language and Politics, 7 (2): 177–200, doi:10.1075/jlp.7.2.01sto, OCLC 535670348
* Stollznow, Karen (2007), "Key Words in the Discourse of Discrimination: A Semantic Analysis", PhD Dissertation University of New England, OCLC 277175055
* Stollznow, Karen (2005), "When Opposites Attract: The Re-appropriation and Amelioration of Words in Australian English", Society of North America, Boston
* Stollznow, Karen (2004), "Whinger! Wanker! Wowser! 'Aussie English insults: deprecatory language and the Australian Ethos'" (PDF), Proceedings of the 2003 Australian Linguistic Society, Australian Journal of Linguistics: 11
* Collins, Anne ed. Stollznow, Karen (2004), "Who You Gonna Call?", English Express 2: 33–38, ISBN 0123602432{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
* Stollznow, Karen (2003), "The semantics and usage of abusive epithets in Australian English. Conference paper proceedings", New Zealand Linguist Society Wellington
* Stollznow, Karen (2002), "Terms of Abuse in Australian English: An analysis of abusive and insulting epithets in Australian English", University of New England BA Honors Thesis

## Personal life

Stollznow is an expatriate Australian and formerly lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Born in the Sydney suburb of Manly, she grew up in Collaroy, on the Northern Beaches of Sydney.
Stollznow lives with her husband Matthew Baxter and their son in Denver, Colorado.