One of the central characters in While He Was Away was inspired by my mother—an experience that she survived, that she told me about just before she died when I was fourteen.

One rainy night right, she said, “Come with me. We’re going shopping.”

We drove in the chilly car to Frank’s, the little, local market just down the street, and we wandered up and down the aisles. She threw these things into the rattling cart: dish washing gloves, a can of tuna, a bag of frozen vegetable medley.

I remember these things. It’s strange that I do, I know. Yet the whole night was strange . . . the fact that my mother, so thin and so ill, would take me out into the stormy dark to buy things that we so clearly didn’t need—dinner was over; the dishes, done—I remember also her striped housedress, her dry skin, the darting glances she cast my way, and her lower lip, which remained pale, even as she chewed at it.

She didn’t say a word to me until we pulled into our driveway. Then she clenched the steering wheel, and, staring out through the streaming windshield, she said, “I was married once before when I was very young. He died a hero in WWII.”

The first thing I thought to say was: “Is Daddy not my Daddy?”

I was frightened. Soon, this Daddy would be the only thing I would have left. I wanted him to be who I thought he was.

My mother flinched. It was like I’d ask the exact question she didn’t want me to ask. She laughed briefly.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’re daddy is most definitely your daddy.”

It was only years later, when I did the math, that I realized that of course this young man, this first love, couldn’t be my father. Seventeen years had passed between his death and my birth.

So many questions, mysteries.

Why did she never tell me before? Why did she tell me in that way, and then refuse to elaborate? What was she like, loving in a way that left her devastated at his death (this I learned later, from a cousin who had heard from someone else). Loving in a way that left her writing letters to him for six months after his memorial service, left her playing the piano for hours on end—Chopin, Chopin, Chopin without stopping. Loving in a way that ultimately left her needing to escape.

At nineteen, my mother, a small-town Oklahoma girl, boarded a train to Pasadena, California, where she went to college—the first in her family to do so. And then she took the train to Chicago, where she got her Masters in Music, and met my dad. Daddy.

Would I have the guts, the spirit to do as my mother did, to turn my grief into a catalyst?

I hope so.

Sometimes writing feels that way to me, a journey from empty to full, from loss to reconciliation, from mystery to simply story, which doesn’t answer the unanswerable questions, perhaps, but makes them bearable.

Chatting with an amazing young author at B 'o B

Signing at Best of Books

I signed copies of While He Was Away and talked with incredible readers and writers.

I also appeared on the TV show, Rise & Shine. (More on this rite of passage when I’ve had time to process!)

My son and I had a great time. We even took a break with our dearly loved cousin to go see The Avengers (though why in this day and age, half-way intelligent, mega-movies still feel entitled, even compelled to make thoughtless, cruel comments about people who were adopted, I don’t understand. I need to write a blog post about this, too).

But some of my favorite parts of the trip were driving with my family around Oklahoma—on the highways and byways, through the city, suburbs, and even out into a little bit of country.

Oklahoma is one of the top Places of My Heart.

I tried to share this with my son. Do you see the soil, how red it is? The trees and bushes—they’re different than those at home, aren’t they? Look at that sky. And that sky. And that sky. Look at the way those radio towers and buildings shoot up out of nowhere, reaching for those clouds, that sunset, that expanse of blue, that spangled black.

When I was a child, before Amtrack (BA), my mother and I would take the Santa Fe Chief (click here for the 1950s film about the Chief) from Chicago’s Union Station down through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, glimpsing the Arch, crossing the Mississippi, passing through innumerable dusty, small towns along the way, until we finally reached the now-defunct and abandoned downtown train station in OKC. We did this about once a year; sometimes twice. As we approached that beautiful, old station and the earth reddened and the sky got bigger, my heart inevitably lifted.

I couldn’t wait to arrive.

I couldn’t wait to arrive this time either.

This past week my cousin told me that when I was a baby, my uncle, a police officer, picked us up in his squad car and escorted us to my grandmother’s house, sirens blazing.

And this past week my cousin told me that when she was a little girl—this was before I was born—she used to think that in between visits my mother spent the entire year perched on top of OKC’s train station. “I thought she just sat up there wearing in her beautiful, elegant green satin dress, waiting until we came to pick her up,” my cousin said.

In spirit, that’s what I’ve been doing, these past years between visits to Oklahoma.

I’ve been sitting on top of the station that is my memory, the family stories pulling in and pulling out, the landscape of the past and present sprawling all around me, ever-changing.

I’ve been waiting. And I’ve been writing.

It’s no surprise, I guess, that I set While He Was Away in Oklahoma.

I’ve never been able to live there. But I could always visit in my imagination.

Where is the place of your heart, the place you go to in your imagination? What story would you live out there?

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.
—Flannery O’Connor

On May 1st—May Day! May Day!—my young adult novel While He Was Away is due out from Sourcebooks Fire. The book has been a long time coming. I started working on it in 2007; it’s gone through many incarnations since that time. One thing has stayed the same, however, and that is my desire to share the story. Or, better put: my desire to understand the story, and what it has to share.

(More and more, from writing to writing, I find myself thinking: the stories are telling me.)

Just yesterday, when a long-time friend asked me to say more about While He Was Away, I began reflecting on what lay behind my original desire. Why this story? Why did I hold on to it for so long, through all the years, revisions, rejections? Why did I keep the faith?

(Or: why did the story keep the faith in me? How did the story keep the faith in me?)

Today, answers branch in all directions, pulling me hither and yon. The most pressing answer, the one that responds as an exclamation point to my recurring question mark is simply: You couldn’t not! (A double negative, I know.)

I couldn’t not write While He Was Away because through all these years, I have not stopped thinking about the Iraq War. I have not stopped thinking about the young men and women who have been deployed, not once, but multiple times. (Are you a man or a woman at 18, only four years older than my daughter is now? Studies show that the young who have served in foreign war are twice as likely to report chronic mental and physical pain as the never-deployed; one could make the case that suffering promotes maturity, I suppose). http://www.gallup.com/poll/142205/deployment-taking-greatest-toll-young-service-members.aspx And I have not been able to stop thinking about the people who love those who have been deployed, and wait for them to come home.

I grew up hearing war stories—my father served in WW II; my mother’s first husband died in WW II—and more often than not, the stories on which I was raised have seemed in direct conflict with the stories I have heard from Iraq. This is partially because my father cloaked his stories in humor. As he described it, World War II was a wonderful coming-of-age experience, a lark. (Never mind his bad dreams, his night terrors. Never mind his last years with Alzheimer’s, when those nightmares leaked into his days.) Would the young men and women serving today similarly describe their time in Iraq (and now in Afghanistan) as a coming-of-age? I found myself wondering as I wrote While He Was Away. And if not, how much does this have to do with a larger cultural shift? How has our country changed—the place today’s soldiers will return to, please God? My father was embraced as a hero. My fear is that our attention span for heroes has been reduced to Andy Warhol’s fifteen seconds of fame. If that.

I couldn’t reconcile the conflict between my parents’ war and mine, between my parents’ country and mine. Or I couldn’t begin to, until I wrote this book. To be frank, I still struggle with this reconciliation even now, with While He Was Away weeks away from having a life of its own.

But I’ve come a little closer to the kind of understanding that as a fiction writer, I hold so dear, in spite of, no, because of the fact that it took me so long to get to this point. It’s the kind of understanding that I think Flannery O’Conner is alluding to, when she writes:
“There’s a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once. The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it’s well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world.”

“Stupidity.” Oh, Flannery. I love this. As fiction writers, are we all holy fools?

Which brings me to faith, and the relationship of faith to the contemplative life, and the relationship of writing to the contemplative life. I couldn’t not write While He Was Away because though I am so often of little faith, I found that in this act—the act of writing this book—I could look, contemplate, see what I hadn’t been able to see before—what I hadn’t been able to bear seeing. The story showed me, surprised me, kept faith in me.

If others seeing writing as an act of faith, or perhaps even as a contemplative act, I would love to hear your stories.

*This post originally appeared over at Redbud Writers Guild, of which I am a member.

There’s a free chapter on board . . . I’d love it if you’d take a gander.

http://www.karenschreck.com/while-he-was-away/

Thanks!

 (Spoiler alert . . . only read the bold type if you like your plots to be totally surprising.)

WHILE HE WAS AWAY (reviewed on April 15, 2012)

“When her boyfriend David leaves for a stint in Iraq, Penna is anxious and devastated, but eventually she finds ways to cope . . . Penna discovers information about a grandmother who has been missing in her life, gets pulled into waiting tables at her mother’s restaurant and finds new friends with whom she can share her current life. In Iraq, David struggles with the mind-numbing work of patrols and the terror that interrupts it, and he focuses on an orphanage for Iraqi refugee children as a way to be useful. Strong characterization, the vivid setting of a small Oklahoma town and the clear depiction of present life, with Skype, e-mail and phones with their inadequate promise of instant communication, strengthen the narrative and ground it in the present. Paralleling Penna’s story is her discovery of a grandmother who lost her first husband in World War II. The perils of war limn the memories of the women left behind and cast into relief both their devotion and their need to continue to live separate and independent lives.”

A strong entry in the growing genre of fiction about the Iraq war. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Pub Date: May 1st, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4022-6402-3

Page count: 256pp

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Review Posted Online: March 28th, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15th, 2012

I was thrilled to attend from the get-go—it was the a wonderful opportunity to meet my editor for While He Was Away, Leah Hultenschmidt, for the first time. (For more on Leah, check out this interview.)  I was not surprised to find Leah in person just as I’d experienced her on the phone: smart, empathic, engaged and engaging, quick-witted, and really quite lovely in every way.   

I was surprised when I was completely blown away by the presentation.  I suppose I should have expected it—Sourcebooks, which, by the way, is the largest, woman-owned trade publisher in the U.S., is known for its independent, forward-thinking approach to publishing.  But watching and hearing Dominique Raccah, Leah, and other members of the Sourcebooks’ team describe why they do what they do, in terms of acquisition, editing, design, marketing, publicity, and relationships really inspired in me a new depth of gratitude that I’ve been given the chance to be a part of the Sourcebooks’ community.

These folks  are not afraid to create new ways to think about what’s next for books, what more can they do for and bring to the experiences of readers and authors.

Being reader-focused, they’re doing things like establishing online book clubs—Discover a New Love is an example.

Sourcebooks will consider agented and non-agented work, and regularly features debut authors.  Oh, and their percentages in terms of sales are truly incredible.

And once you’re a part of Sourcebooks, they’ll do their best to build your career, and they’re not afraid to say they’ve got the hardest-working authors in the industry.

I spoke with some of the Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance authors today—people like Susanna Kearsley, Grace Burrowes, and Tes Hilaire, and I have to say . . . not only are they hardworking, they’re incredibly nice, too.

By: Teo Schreck

the author, in cognito

On a cold winter day on January 4,1962 Karen Halvorsen was born in Elmhurst, Illinois. The first 3 people she saw were the nurse, doctor and her mom. Then Karen was brought to her home.

Karen grew up in a small house in the pleasant town of Winfield, Illinois. When she was old enough, Karen had to help keep the house and yard clean. Karen had to dust, iron, vacuum, pull dandelions, make her bed and clean her room, but she never got paid! On the other hand, she only had to dusting, iron, make her bed and clean her room everyday. She only had to vacuum once a week and pulling dandelions in the summer time.

My mom and her family enjoyed each other’s company. They loved going to plays, museums, concerts and on trips. They also liked to read and watch T.V. together. They would often choose an activity to do after church on Sunday. Sometimes they would go get ice cream, and other times they would go for boat rides.

the author, on his 10th birthday

In addition to their Sunday family times, holidays were always favorites for Karen and her parents. For every holiday, except Karen’s birthday and Halloween, they invited family over and had a big feast which consisted of ham and turkey (if it was Thanksgiving) fruit, salad, drinks and desserts. After they ate, they played games such as Parcheesi, Monopoly, Rook and Uno. They also went on trips and opened presents (if it was Easter, Christmas or a birthday.) On some rare occasions, they would watch T.V..

the author (who likes pigs) Christmas, '11

Besides liking holidays Karen also liked pets. Karen had a lotof pets. She had four dogs, a yellow canary named Tweety, a parakeet, a turtle and fish. Actually the fish were her father’s. The first dog, Pepper, was a black and white schnauzer. The second dog, Tinker, was a black miniature poodle, and the third dog Cricket, was a little brown and black Yorkshire terrier. The last dog Patty was a light brown Wheaton terrier. All the dogs were playful and fun. Chip was the parakeet. He was a lovely violet purple. Chip was fun. Karen tried to make him talk (though he never learned.)  The turtle (which didn’t have a name) was green. The turtle was little and fun to watch. Karen also had fish. She had a striped angelfish, blue betas, silver guppies and neon tetras. They were all fun to watch swim.

the author with his (single) pet, a whippet named Honor

Karen also had fun enjoying her many hobbies. Some of them were reading, drawing, and swimming. In the summer when she was a girl, she went swimming a lot and whenever she could, she would read. She’d read for hours and hours. Karen liked reading fantasies, contemporary fiction, biographies and mysteries. Of course she drew too. Karen liked drawing queens, princesses, nature and animals. Even now, Karen still likes to read, swim and draw.

When she was in grade school she went to Wheaton Christian Grammar School. At the time this was a K-8^th grade school. For high school, she attended the small school of Wheaton Academy. Throughout school, she enjoyed reading, being in plays and traveling. Out of all her teachers, she liked her 6^th grade teacher, Miss Bingham, the best. Miss Bingham was very funny and liked to laugh with her pupils. At the time, there was a contest for the best Valentine’s Day Card. My mom worked really hard, but wasn’t finished before recess. Miss Bingham encouraged her to stay inside and finish it. She won 1^st place.

After high school, my mom went to Wheaton collage. She majored in English. When she graduated, she moved to Boston and lived by the ocean. She also worked in a publishing company. After a couple years, she moved to New York State and got her master’s degree in English and creative writing. Then she moved back to Illinois, taught at Wheaton College, worked in advertising, and met Greg Schreck. They met because Greg also worked at Wheaton College. They got married in 1990.

Today she is writing books, websites, advertisements and articles. The titles of her books are Lucy’s Family Tree, Dream Journal and her latest one (which is coming out in May), While He Was Away. She is also busy being a mom and says that her proudest memory is adopting her son and daughter, Teo and Maggie Schreck.

While she remembers adopting her children with pride, she is sad about her strongest memory of a world event: 9-11.  She was at her house when her friend called and said, “Turn on the T.V. now.”  Karen turned it on and was just in time to see the first Tower burning, and then the second airplane crash into the second Tower.  She couldn’t believe her eyes as the Towers fell.  She said it was the first time the U.S.A felt really vulnerable.

the author, enjoying a cup of his favorite tea, Earl Gray

To me, my mom is a great person.  She is always there for me whenever and wherever I need her.  That is why she is very important to me.  

This past Friday, I attended my second Illinois Author and Illustrator Luncheon at the 44^th Annual Illinois Reading Council Conference.  I’m a big, big fan of the IRC and its mission:  ”to provide support and leadership to educators as they promote and teach lifelong literacy.”  I’ve been honored to present at the conference in the past, and there’s nothing like this particular luncheon, where writers and illustrators for kids and teens get to sit down and talk with those educators who are passionate about books, and are working to instill that passion in the kids they teach.

People like this:

Some of the cool women at my table

We talked about the books we love, the books our kids love, the books that win the awards (often the same as those we love, but not always).  We talked about the upcoming midnight showing of The Hunger Games, and when to hit the best sales at Office Max so you can stock up on school supplies for the kids who can’t afford them.  We talked about war, and what it’s like when your son is deployed, and how I researched While He Was Away, and why I wrote Lucy’s Family Tree, and if I wrote when I was a kid.  (“Yes,” I said.  ”Orange notebooks.  Just like Harriet the Spy.”)  I signed their copies of Dream Journal.  ”Remember your dreams,” I wrote on the title pages–which seemed really appropriate, given the challenges and rewards of their shared profession.

Then we said a fond good-bye.

After that I got to see a few of my friends who are writers and scholars.  Friends like:

Kathi Baron, author of a great YA novel, Shattered (which I got to read in manuscript form!)

Scott Gustafson, illustrator of many gorgeous books, and writer and illustrator of the novel, Edde—The Lost Youth of Edgar Allen Poe, which Scott also illustrated in a way that reminds me of those fine, fine classic pictures in novels by Charles Dickens. (whew!)

Roxanne Owens, who is a professor of Education at DePaul University., and who was the 2012 recipient of the IRC Hall of Fame Award!

Friends who all have their feet on the ground, I promise.

And then there was the whole, happy room of writers and illustrators.

Here’s the roster (I encourage you to Google all of them!):

Krista August, George Bailey, Blue Balliett, Kathi Baron, Raymond Bial, B.A. Binns, Debbie Chocolate, Carolyn Crimi, Kat Falls, Beth Finke, Scott Gustafson, Michele Weber Hurwitz, Kimberly M. Humacher, Sara L. Latta, Laurie Lawlor, Steven L. Layne, Marianne Malone, Alice B. McGinty, W. Nicola-Lisa, Janet Nolan, Nnedi Okorafor, Patricia Hruby Powell, Sherri Duskey Rinker, Barb Rosenstock, Casey Salmon, Me, Kristina Springer, Nancy Steward, Salty M. Walker, Jeff Weigel.

Yay!

If you are interested in attending or presenting at IRC 2013, please do explore the possibilities here:  http://www.illinoisreadingcouncil.org/eventscalendar.html

“No more tweaks or changes—this is the file going to the printers!”