Red Fern Press welcomes new author Karson Brown to its roster

COLUMBUS— Red Fern Press welcomes Author and Artist Karson Brown to its label and is excited to launch her debut survival memoir 48 Days to Barbados Oct. 20 of 2026.

“I chose Red Fern Press because I was extremely impressed with Steph West,” said Brown. “Her own writing career is prolific, and her decision to start up an indie press supporting women writers and their stories spoke to me. Especially in a competitive field, historically dominated by men. Red Fern Press convinced me my story mattered.”

Brown grew up sailing and living aboard boats in the Pacific Northwest. She turned twenty-one on a fishing vessel in the Bering Sea, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard a thirty-four-foot sailboat during hurricane season before turning thirty. Karson raised her two children along the shores of Vashon Island surrounded by a menagerie of critters. She is a writer, photographer, artist, and lifelong devotee of water.

“I wrote 48 Days to Barbados because my inner voice, the creative one that often won’t let me sleep, begged me to share this once in a lifetime journey filled with adventure and obstacles that were out of the ordinary. That voice insisted I tell the story, and wouldn’t quiet until I wrote it down,” said Brown of the survival memoir. “One of the key messages is the old classic phrase, you’re stronger than you think, and your intuition will never fail you. But you have to listen, and sometimes that requires slowing down. Even when the wind is howling 40 knots, and you’re sailing upon 20 foot waves in the middle of the ocean. Your intuition has your ear. Don’t ignore it.”

The memoir’s premise is simple: In 1999, 28-year-old Karson Brown and her best friend embarked on a journey to help a woman they’d never met navigate her thirty-four-foot sailboat from Portugal to Ft. Lauderdale. But their three-week adventure crossing the Atlantic quickly became a fight for survival as contaminated water, a dead engine, and depleted provisions during hurricane-season winds threatened their very lives.

In this breathtaking memoir, Brown takes readers on a forty-eight day journey across the ocean where they navigated by the stars, and learned that the greatest challenges weren’t the towering waves or electrical storms, but the demons they had brought aboard with them.

“Not only is it a beautiful love letter to the Atlantic ocean, it’s an introspective journey that touches on subjects that everyone can relate to regardless of gender or the unique backdrop of crossing an ocean,” said Brown of her story. “Am I making the right decisions? Am I doing the right thing? Am I enough? Am I on the right path in life? Am I with the right person, or should I be single? Universal themes most of us have grappled with are unpacked during a once in a lifetime voyage. And if you’ve never questioned your purpose on this rotating planet, you should still read it, it’s a wild ride worth your time.”

Karson is an alumna of Joyce Maynard’s “Write By The Lake Workshop”, in Guatemala. She has two short stories in the upcoming Vine Leaves Press 50 Give or Take Anthology, coming out November 2025. Red Fern Press will publish Karson’s debut memoir 48 Days to Barbados on Oct. 20, 2026.