Stay up to date with blog posts from Karen.

Check my blog for updates on these an other reviews and awards. Learn about my new life on the Navajo reservation in Chinle AZ.

Four Feet Two Sandals has been nominated for the 2011 California Young Readers Award.  Stay tuned on my blog.

My Name is Sangoel won a 2010 Carolyn W. Field honor awarded by the Pennsylvania Library Association.

A Beach Tail received starred reviews in both Kirkus and School Library Journal.  This little book has also been picked by Jessica Doyle the First Lady of Wisconsin as the book of the month for March in the Read on Wisconsin book club.

Check my blog for updates on these an other reviews and awards .

Work in Progress

Dreaming Tyson (working title). In this young YA novel, 14 year old Boniface is forced to live in Kibera the largest slum in Africa as a victim of the aids epidemic that has taken his mother and his grandfather.  He manages to eke out a dignified existence where he attends school and plays soccer and dreams of going on to secondary school.  But when his best friend and mentor, Tyson is hit and killed by a pick up truck, Boniface’s fragile world falls apart.  He ends up on the streets of Nairobi as a chokera, a street boy, where life is degrading and harsh. He is unable to accept the help offered by his friends Beatrice a schoolmate and the girl he has a crush on or Madam Josephine, the local business woman who buys used paper for recylcing from the street boys. Boniface must find a way to cope with this new loss and in doing so he learns more about his dead friend, himself, life in his own world and beyond.

Finally the rough draft is finished and I am polishing and marketing this book.  I have gotten to know and love my characters well and am attached to them all.  I hope they find a home and make connections out in the world.

Where Do the Leaves Go?
Over a year ago I heard a scientist on NPR ask the question “Where do the piles of leaves go that you see in the park in Fall? By Spring they have disappeared.” That got me thinking. Where do those leaves go? I spent a year walking in the park nearly everyday and struggled with how to tell the story I saw unfolding there. What developed is a lyrical picture book based on my interest in nature and poetry, Where do the Leaves Go? I envision a lively, slightly whimsical exploration of this simple question.

YA Novel
I need to capture the voices of my youngest son, who is headed off to college soon, and his friends, before it is too late. To that end I am working on a YA novel with a smart, sardonic voice in the first person. So much material like being locked in the boys bathroom at school during…well, bathroom lock down. Or how about that fly nap in Bio lab where you count the red butts of fruit flies to determine how many flies of each sex in your sample? And what about when you use your sister’s old backpack and the security guard at the metal detector entrance to school unearths a tampon among your belongings? What to do when the girl who you had planned to ask to the Semi formal fall dance announces she is going with your lab partner who you know is a player? I guess I’ll find out. These and many others are the stories that inspire. Now I need the plot.

Poetry
I have been working on a book of poetry for adults. In April 2007 I attended a writer’s workshop in Chautauqua, New York where I studied with the Pulitzer prize winner poet, Carl Dennis. I have had two poems published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Homewood Cemetery and  Because it’s Summer.

New Poetry

Two new chapbooks of poetry by Karen Lynn Williams published by graduate students at Chatham University publishing class.

Crowns of Silver a chapbook of nature and travel poetry.  And Voices Rise and Fall, Poems of Haiti.

Here are some samples:

Chadec Flames

Drying in the shimmer
Of a heat mirage day
Ribboned rinds of grapefruit
dangle from the candlab hedge twisted
streamers swirl yellow and white
like underskirts of ra-ra dancers
in the street

at night, the peels tossed
into embers of cook fires
hiss and spark
whisper “belle sent”
flirt with the smolder
of sweat and trash and death
 
suffocating smoke dances compa
in a shaft of moonlight
undulates in partner with
the flirtatious perfumed illusion,
a cruel tease.

Deepening of Autumn

come swift or slow
her hues do not fade gently
like the red in my son’s cheeks
after an autumn run,
instead; spark like dying
embers in the bellow’s breath
of an October evening’s breeze

together he and I watch
the slanting sunlight
sigh through trees
turn gray to Cape Cod blue
for one          brief
moment fades
into night.

He was birthed in October
when the deep purple
of a last hollyhock
and the blood red
of one final nasturtium still
graced the garden

perennials curl back to
earth, deep escape
the fingers of frost, 
while annuals shrivel
and end with the season.

Ripe for learning
his jacket unzipped to the cold
he kicks at fallen leaves
crunch beneath his feet
the sound of joy

his breath billows
white with heat,
leaving as natural
as season’s change,
only Spring’s return is sure.
                                                                                                                                   
Autumn deep with good-bye
takes him
steeped in brilliant youth.

Kenya photo by Wendy Stone

Beatrice's Dream, A Story of Kibera Slum published by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books came out in February 2011.

When I was in Kenya I spent a week following Beatrice who lives in Kibera
the largest slum in Africa. I went to school with her and she shared her
joys and fears with me. This experience has lead to a new picture book,
Beatrice's Dream, A Story of Kibera Slum with photos by Wendy Stone.

Lubuto Means Light to be published by Boyds Mills Press in 2011
Illustrated by Ann Grifalconi

In this new picture book manuscript Chiwato from Zambia is left homeless because of the aids epidemic. Like the thousands of street children worldwide, he searches for a place to call home. That’s when he learns about a special place called Lubuto Library. This is a story for children everywhere who have ever found a home at the library. I was inspired to write this book by the founder of the Lubuto Library Project. To learn more about this project and children like Chiwato see the website www.Lubuto.org.

New Anthology Available June 2011
Many Genres, One Craft:  Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction is a unique anthology of essays written by published authors working in the genres. I am honored to be part of this exciting new work with two essays:

• If You Write it, They Will See It: Picture Book Illustrations from the Writer’s Point of View
• Writing From Place, Across Cultures

See the Many Genres, One Craft blog and join this varied group of writers on Facebook.

Travel in 2011

I have been busy exploring the Navajo reservation.  Now, I live next door to Canyon De Chelly so I can visit often. I am also short distances (by western standards) from Monument Valley the Grand Canyon and the Hopi mesas. My hiking, nature and cross- cultural passions are well met out here in Chinle AZ.  When I am not traveling away from town I love my daily walks on the mesa with my dog Reena.

It is only March and I have already returned to Pittsburgh to teach, hiked the Grand Canyon and visited my new grandson in Taiwan in this year of the rabbit.  

I was lucky to be in Taiwan for the Lantern Festival and the International Flower Show. Best of all I got to see my grandson Ethan. 

I also spent a week in Breckenridge and Frisco Colorado where I was cross- country skiing, hiking and snow shoeing on top of ten feet of snow.  Wow!

Check out more travel photos on the blog.