Born in 1932 in Manhattan, New York, Karla Seidman was the only child of Sidney and Mitzi Seidman, and was raised in Greenwich Village, New York City.
She attended the Little Red School House, followed by Elisabeth Irwin High School. She then attended Antioch College in 1950–53, and transferred to Yale University where she studied with, among others, Josef Albers, Herbert Matter and Alvin Eisenman. She earned her B.F.A in graphic design in 1955 from Yale.
Before working as a full-time author, she worked as an assistant to a fashion Photographer, a design assistant, and in advertising. Her first book, Roar and More (Harper, 1956), came out of her senior graphic arts project at Yale to design and print a book on a small press.
Kuskin wrote Paul in 1994, with paintings by Milton Avery, which had originally been created for an abandoned children's book, to go with a (now lost) story by Writer H. R. Hays, nearly thirty years after the painter's death.
Her autobiography, Thoughts, Pictures, and Words, with photographs by her son Nicholas, was published in 1995.
In August 2009, Kuskin died of corticobasal degeneration in Seattle, at age 77.
