#justmeandmyyellowchair
Hello!
I'm Kari Kraakevik, a Colorado writer and composer whose prose carries the same architectural precision as her music.
I'm currently preparing my autofiction novel, Boobs, Ballads, and Becoming, for querying. My contemporary romance novel, Sing Me a Song, is currently in editorial development. I'm also revising my literary novel The Girl Who Walked Through Glass and developing two children's picture books: The Tortoise Without a Shell and the Reel Kids Club series, inspired by real classroom experiences. I am also one of three finalist in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers 2026 Gold Rush Literary Award!
My writing explores identity, neurodivergence, endurance, belonging, and the quiet moments that shape our lives.
Selected Publications
My writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, Divergents Magazine, Open Secrets Magazine, Larina's Lit Lounge, Backsliders Magazine, Chicago Story Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, Grande Dame Literary Magazine, The Genre Society, ELJ Editions, ColoradoBiz, ONE ART, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Infocalypse Arts & Literary Magazine.
The missing middle of business ownership
Our lease is up in August. The landlord sent 35 pages detailing our current lease, our history as tenants and the new rates if we choose to re-sign.
They assume we’ll re-sign.
For the past five years, I have paid more than $1.1 million in rent.
Triple net.
To them.
Every month is a terrifying experience. We watch money come in almost as quickly as it goes out, silently hoping people wait until the middle of the month to cash their checks
We’ve never been late on rent, however.
Not once.
All $1.1 million worth.
“Wow. A million dollars,” I said under my breath.
The thorn drew blood before I saw the flowers.
“Open it from the top,” the delivery man had said, handing me the long rectangular box.
I slit the tape and reached in. A sharp sting bloomed along my finger.
Inside were two dozen red roses.
I don’t like roses.
I have never trusted things that require you to bleed to hold them.
FLASH NON-FICTION
JUN 24, 20263 MIN READ
"Authority Figures & Girls Who Learned Obedience" by Kari Kraakevik
"That was the first time I remember realizing responsibility was not evenly distributed. I didn’t yet have the language for theology or patriarchy. I only knew the arithmetic felt wrong."
Authority Figures & the Girls Who Learned Obedience is a creative nonfiction essay about purity culture, authority, and the unequal distribution of responsibility placed on girls from an early age. Beginning with a fifth-grade sex education class and following those lessons into adulthood, Kari Burroughs Kraakevik examines how obedience is taught, how accountability becomes distorted, and why the arithmetic of responsibility never quite added up. First published in Backsliders Magazine.
They were going to throw them away.
Four sets of curtain fairy lights, impossibly tangled, each with 10, maybe 12 feet of fine wire.
They handed me what looked like a three-foot cocoon.
“Have at it.”
I put them in the back seat of my car.
I couldn’t wait to get home and untangle them.
At home, I made my favorite ginger tea, grabbed a cookie from the jar, turned on the fire, and sat on a big Moroccan pillow so I could be level with the cocoon, formerly known as fairy lights.
Of the forty ends, only one was visible.
It called to me.
Here I am.
I Knew Who Was Safe
Larina's Lit Lounge Vol 2 Issue 14
No one told me what safe looked like. At six, I knew what it felt like. We were on a cross-country road trip, my mother, my baby brother Kyle, and me. We stopped at an IHOP. My mom wanted pancakes. I wanted a real bathroom. Not a rest stop. My mother and brother ordered. I ordered one plain crepe, syrup on the side. My mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t you want strawberries on it at least?” “No.” I always knew what I wanted.
The Whistle
Chicago Story Press Literary Journal
It was a normal Saturday afternoon in Wheaton, Illinois. I rode my bike to the library to pick up a VHS and maybe stop by the popcorn shop afterward. I had a lot of “free roaming” privileges now that I was eleven.
The VHS collection was in the children’s section of the library—well, all the ones I was allowed to rent. Luckily, they had some newer PG ones. “Practically PG-13,” I told myself. Choosing the Saturday night movie rental for my brothers and me felt important.
I waved to the librarian, who only knew me because I had lost my card at least five times that year alone, and headed downstairs.
The Hours Were Never Empty
My earliest memories are not of my mother or father. Not learning to walk. Not birthdays or toys.
My earliest memories are of being awake.
Awake when everyone else was asleep.
I loved the moment the house shut down for the night. The closing music of Masterpiece Theatre. My father clicking off the television. My mother’s hardcover book snapping shut. The light switch. The pull chain on the ceiling fan in their bedroom.
I knew every sound.
From my room, I could hear them as if they were happening beside me instead of down the hall. I listened for them in order, like a ritual.
Television.
Book.
Light.
Fan.
Only then would the house belong to me.
Award Recognition
The Girl Who Walked Through Glass — 2026 Gold Rush Literary Award Finalist
My novel The Girl Who Walked Through Glass has been named a 2026 Gold Rush Literary Award finalist in Women’s Fiction/Romance by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Selected as one of three finalists in its category, the manuscript has advanced to the final round of judging by a visiting industry professional. Winners will be announced at the Colorado Gold Writers Conference in October 2026.
