Karen Downing is a historian and publisher, proud Canberran, and one of the hundreds of people who found themselves rebuilding homes and lives after the 2003 Canberra bushfires. She graduated with a PhD from the Australian National University in 2011 and her first book, Restless Men Masculinity and Robinson Crusoe, 1788-1840 was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014. In Tears, Laughter, Champagne, Karen tells her own story of recovery and those of eight women who became treasured friends on that journey.