Karen Cord Taylor founded The Beacon Hill Times weekly newspaper in 1995 and served as its editor and publisher until late 2007. She also founded and served as editor and publisher of the Charlestown Patriot-Bridge and The Back Bay Sun weeklies. Her column appeared in those newspapers, as well as the Regional Review (serving Boston’s North End) and northendwaterfront.com. The papers are now owned by the Independent Newspaper Group.

She is the author of Blue Laws, Brahmins and Breakdown Lanes: An Alphabetic Guide to Boston and Bostonians and the co-author of The Lady Architects, a book about three women who practiced architecture in New England and elsewhere in the early 20th century. She was the chair of the Beacon Hill Garden Club’s committee that produced Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill in 2013. She is also the author of Legendary Locals of Beacon Hill, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2014.

Karen’s latest book, Getting to Grand Prairie: One Hundred Londoners and Their Quest for Land in Frontier Illinois, appeared in September, 2015. It tells a story of the late 1840s and 1850s settlement of Vermilion County, Illinois, where she and her husband grew up.

She lives in downtown Boston.