Karmen Karma Talks Memoir 'Overcome'

LOS ANGELES—Karmen Karma will discuss her struggles with mental health and other challenges she’s faced in a new memoir called Overcome now available for pre-order. The native of Houghton, Mich., who returned to adult performing this year after a two-year hiatus during which she started a family, said she wanted to share her story with the world with the hope that “this can motivate readers and inspire them to overcome their battles as well.” “I know many people struggle with the issues that I have overcome and if I can help one person find strength, then it was worth writing this memoir,” Karma told AVN Wednesday. Karma, a 2019 AVN Awards nominee for Favorite Social Media Star who now resides in San Diego, racked up more than 170 credits since making her porn debut in 2012 when she was 21. She took a break from performing in March 2016 and started the process of putting her thoughts on paper. “During the entirety of my pregnancy and a year afterward, I worked daily on writing down my story,” Karma said. “It was very therapeutic to reflect on everything I’ve been through. It’s been a goal since high school to write a memoir one day. I’m so proud of myself for accomplishing it.” The synopsis of Overcome reveals how personal Karma was willing to get. She recounts how she grappled with depression and eating disorders, an abortion, her strained relationship with her mother, and a suicide attempt in 2012, when she was living in Pensacola, Fla. That episode happened only a couple months before Karma decided to move to LA to pursue a career in the porn industry. “I have always been an open book on social media but this will be the first time officially speaking out about my life,” said Karma, who also goes into detail about her years as a topless dancer in the book. “My goal is to reach everyone struggling to give them hope.” Karma said that writing Overcome “gave me much more respect for myself.” “Sometimes I forget how much I have been through. It makes me proud of the person I have become,” she continued. “I think readers will be able to learn a lot from reading Overcome. I want to showcase that no matter how low you might be at a point in your life, that it’s always possible to turn it around. Only you have the possibility to change your life.” Karma said she found her publisher, Rare Bird Books, “by looking in the back of one of my favorite memoirs, Girlvert.” Girlvert: A Porno Memoir, which was written by 2004 AVN Female Performer of the Year Ashley Blue, was published in 2011. “I saw the author thank them for publishing her story and decided to submit to them myself,” Karma said. “I wrote this book 100 percent on my own. While writing I had no idea it would actually be published one day. The main goal was to get published but in my head it was so farfetched.” Without giving away the ending, Karma added, “I found a lot of clarity about who I am as a person and how I feel about the adult industry. I’m excited that there will finally be a book about the porn industry that is not making porn seem like an awful place.” Overcome will be shipped in April 2019. Photo courtesy of Brazzers