[7] After a respite from school to participate in the anti-apartheid movement,[8] Karr attended Goddard College and graduated with a terminal degree in fine arts.

[15][16][17] Karr's Pushcart Award-winning essay, "Against Decoration", was originally published in the quarterly review Parnassus (1991) and later reprinted in Viper Rum.

She argues that emotions must be directly expressed and that clarity should be a watchword: characters are too obscure, the presented physical world is often "foggy" (imprecise), references are "showy" (both non-germane and overused), metaphors overshadow expected meaning, and techniques of language (polysyllables, archaic words, intricate syntax, "yards of adjectives") only "slow a reader's understanding".

In it, Karr writes about moving from agnostic alcoholic to baptized Catholic of the decidedly "cafeteria" kind, yet one who prays twice daily with loud fervor from her "foxhole".

[22][23] Some time after their divorce, she began dating author David Foster Wallace, whose alleged abusive behavior toward Karr—which included throwing a coffee table at her and harassing her five-year-old son—is documented in his 2012 biography.

[24] Although she has converted to Catholicism, Karr has some views at odds with those of the Catholic Church, such as supporting abortion rights, and has advocated for women's ordination to the priesthood.