Author Interview: Karen Schreck

Posted February 9, 2013 by Shannon in Reviews / 1 Comment

We have Karen Schreck with us today chatting about her release, While He Was Away. Help me in welcoming Karen to Cocktails and Books.

Tell us about yourself.

I grew up just outside Chicago, and except for a few years in Boston and upstate New York, Chicago and its environs have been my primary stomping grounds. I’m married to a photographer, have a daughter and a son, 15 and 11, respectively. A whippet and a tortoise also live in our house. I make my living as a writer—been doing a lot of advertising work lately, in addition to writing novels—and I also love teaching, and have spent a lot of time teaching writing and lit to college students. I love traveling, good food, my family and dear friends, yoga of a certain type, biking on my Electra Amsterdam, and more things than I can name.

How did you get your start as a writer?

I was only child with two older parents who worked a lot. I read all the time and often acted out stories, playing all the parts. Sounds lonely, and it was a bit, but by the time I was in third grade I was keeping an orange notebook like Harriet the Spy and writing stories. I kept it up through my school years (which extended until I had a doctorate). I guess I never really stopped. Here I am on a Saturday morning, having just made French toast for my son and myself, and now I’m writing to you.

What is your typical writing schedule like?

I just try to do the work whenever I can, which means that it varies from year to year. When we brought our daughter home from Guatemala, I wrote during her naps, and this continued when my son was young. This year, I’ve been writing on the quiet car on the Chicago Metra, commuting to and from work. And on my lunch hours. And in spaces that open up on the weekends. Anywhere, and everywhere. Like i used to read as a kid.

Tell us about WHILE HE WAS AWAY.

WHILE HE WAS AWAY is the story of a young woman, Penna Weaver, who’s first real love, David O’Dell, is deployed to Iraq. In her loneliness and fear in the weeks after he’s gone, Penna discovers a family secret–her estranged grandmother also loved a young man who served in World War II. Penna makes it her mission to find her grandmother, and to support David as best she can. Life and love never stay simple for long, of course, and Penna soon faces some real challenges. Like David, she has to fight her own kind of war.

Where did the idea for the storyline come from?

WHILE HE WAS AWAY evolved from my initial reaction to the Iraq War–my deep concern for the young people who were going off to fight, and the traumas they were experiencing, and the very different response of our culture to the conflict and our vets, as compared with the response of my parents’ generation to WWII. My mother’s first husband was killed in that war, and my dad fought in it, so I grew up with stories of what life was like then, on the home front and on the battlefield. My contemporary experience and my family history wove together to make WHILE HE WAS AWAY.

What do you think readers will like/love about Penna and David?

I think people will like Penna Weaver’s spirit. She has had a pretty tough life–she and her mother, Linda, have moved around a lot. She hasn’t always made the best choices. Now when Penna and Linda finally set in a place that offers the best possibility for a stable future, and Penna for the first time finds a love worth holding onto, David leaves, and she’s lonely and unsettled–devastated, really–again. But she has a strong will. She has talents (she’s an amazing artist), and she figures out how to stay strong and get stronger through the experience.

In terms of David O’Dell: I feel tenderness because I think his character captures so much of what makes it hard to be a guy in our culture. He has to be tough, to prove or, even find, his manhood through choices and actions that may, in fact, go against his nature. Here’s this sensitive, searching guy, an artist, like Penna, who finds himself in the middle of extreme violence. How will he survive–not just physically, but emotionally? That question is worth exploring in a book, I think, and in life.

What was your favorite scene from the book?

It’s really hard to choose, because I think they all building on each other. I have to say, I LOVED writing this setting. My mother was from Oklahoma, and I spent a lot of time there growing up–I’ve been there 3 times this year alone, just to see family. So scenes that where the setting wrapped itself around the characters meant a great deal to me. Like the scene where David and Penna are riding on his motorcycle, for instance.

Who are some of your must read authors?

Oh, my. Did I mention I read a lot? So hard to choose. For YA: Laurie Halse Anderson, M.T. Anderson, and there’s a new book for 2013, One Came Home by Amy Timberlake, that just rocked my world. Lately I’ve been reading more adult, historical. I LOVED The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (it’s being compared to The Great Gatsby, for good reason). And State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett, as well as her book Bel Canto. But these are the tip of the iceberg.

What are three things about you that might surprise your readers?

When I was little, people often compared me to Shirley Temple, and pinched my cheeks.
I can sit and watch my son’s tortoise for longer than I ever imagined possible. A very contemplative animal. And it’s like having a little dinosaur right in our home.
I once visited the Queen of Holland, and her Lady In Waiting had to help me find the bathroom and . . . something else. I won’t go into the details.

What’s next for you?

I’m under contract for another book–this one a historical novel, supposedly for adults, though the main character is 21, and really is facing a lot of the same issues that teens face. It’s due out in 2014. 10,000 more words to go!

About the book

One year–he’ll be gone for one year and then we’ll be together again and everything will be back to the way it should be.

The day David left, I felt like my heart was breaking. Sure, any long-distance relationship is tough, but David was going to war–to fight, to protect, to put his life in danger. We can get through this, though. We’ll talk, we’ll email, we won’t let anything come between us.

I can be an army girlfriend for one year. But will my sweet, soulful, funny David be the same person when he comes home? Will I? And what if he doesn’t come home at all?…

About the Author

Karen Schreck is the author of the young adult novel WHILE HE WAS AWAY (Sourcebooks Fire, May 2012), as well as the novel DREAM JOURNAL, which was a 2006 Young Adult BookSense Pick, and the award-winning children’s book, LUCY’S FAMILY TREE. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize and an Illinois State Arts Council Grant, Karen received her doctorate in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She writes and teaches for a living, and she loves visiting schools and other gatherings of readers and writers to talk about her books the writing process.

For more information or to contact Karen, please visit her blog: http://karenschreck.com/blog

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Shannon

Owner at Cocktails and Books

I am a lover of alpha males with dirty mouths, strong heroines putting alpha males in their place, and the Chicago Blackhawks. I'm a proud hockey mom who can often be found at the hockey rink cheering on my favorite forward, with my kindle close by.