Karp worked as a television producer and director for Lifetime, Fox, and HBO; and has written for Spin, Details, and Jane magazines. In 1993, Karp and Debbie Stoller produced the first issue of Bust, "The Magazine for Women With Something to Get Off Their Chests", now seen as one of the flagship publications of third-wave feminism, mixing feminism with sexuality. Betty Boob was the name that Karp used in writing for the magazine. The two women met while working for Nickelodeon in New York City. Her 1999 book with Stoller, "The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order",, is a collection of articles from that magazine. She was forced out of Bust in 2001. Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller envisioned publishing a magazine that would essentially attract women like themselves; “a magazine for broads who aren’t afraid of any f – words…”. Their intention was to assure the generation of young women that feminism hadn’t been given up on just yet. The two feminists however had no previous education or experience regarding publication of any sort but decided that with the help of their friends they could potentially create exactly what they intend to. The time came when Karp and Stoller finally published their anticipated magazine – BUST. “A Day in a Life” was the title of BUST’s very first issue, with a total of 29 pages and 500 overall copies of the magazine itself. Shortly after, they began to receive requests for new issues, fan mail, and printed an extra five hundred copies because of the success. As their work caught the eyes of others, they soon partnered up another individual, Laurie Henzel, who contributed to the graphic designs of the magazine that was the missing piece to their ultimate success. Five years since their first issue was published, they went from printing 500 copies to distributing over 30,000. In Karp and Stoller’s novel, The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order, they write that “In BUST, they’ve captured the voice of a brave new girl: one that is raw and real, straightforward and sarcastic, smart and silly…” Running this magazine as a part-time jobon top of their full time job, the trio struggled to manage the pressures that came with publication so they sold the magazine itself to a branch of Razorfish Studios so the company could handle the publishing aspects since Karp and Stoller “know how to make the content.” The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order, written and edited by Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller, was published in 1999. It was an anthology of the articles written for BUST from their first issue to 1998. Karp remains active. She spoke at Riot Fest in 2014, and launched Barb Magazine in 2016 is currently writing a new novel. Karp was married in 2000 and also gave birth to a daughter, Ruby, that year. She was divorced in 2002.
