Karla Gayle Schmidt

Karla Gayle Schmidt was born in Springfield, Illinois, USA, and grew up in southeastern Michigan. She attended a confessional boarding preparatory school in Saginaw, Michigan – Michigan Lutheran Seminary – graduated in 1969, and entered Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin. In 1973, she earned a bachelor’s degree in German Language Studies and Comparative Religions, and in 1974, was awarded a master’s degree in the Art of Teaching, both in Beloit. She then began a 42-year teaching career, first as an instructor for English and Religious Studies at a German state preparatory school in the late summer of 1974, and then taught in German grammar schools for the next nine years. After a short family phase, she took up the study of Philosophy at the University of Hannover, where she was awarded her “Magister” degree in 1994 in Philosophy, German Literature and English Language Studies. In that same year, she was part of the founding faculty of the International School Hannover Region, where she taught for the next 23 years and from which she retired in 2016. It was not until that year that she found the time to write the novel for which her trans-national life had provided the necessary background and insights.

“Fair Harbor” was first published in English in 2017, then translated into German in 2020. She published one other short story called Ultimate Field Hockey in 2017.