Louis, Missouri, where she teaches American literature, professional writing, and environmental studies. Karla holds a Ph.D. in English from The Ohio State University, where she competed a dissertation on environmental advocacy in American literature and culture. With Kathleen R. Wallace, she is editor of Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism (Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 2002), and she is a past president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. Most recently, she has become very interested in animal studies and is working on a book about representations of dogs in literature and popular culture.