Hart, Karen

PERSONAL:

Married; husband's name Gary; children: two sons. Education: Attended Illinois State University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Santa Rosa, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Freelance writer. Worked variously as both a creative and a technical writer, in both corporate communications and public relations.

WRITINGS:

Butterflies in May (novel), Bancroft Press (Baltimore, MD), 2006.

Contributor to various periodicals, including Sonoma Family-Life and Enlightened Woman.

SIDELIGHTS:

Karen Hart began writing when she was a teenager, getting her start on her high school newspaper. Hart's first novel, Butterflies in May, began as a story idea when she was still in high school. Although Hart never experienced a teen pregnancy, she went to school with several girls who did, and their situations forced her to ask herself what she would do in similar circumstances. Hart abandoned the idea at the time, only to revisit it as an adult, once she had married and started a family of her own. The book tells the story of Ali, a high school senior in a middle-class Chicago suburb, who finds herself pregnant after she and her boyfriend forgo using protection a single time. Hart shows the reader Ali's point of view, following her through the realization of what has happened, and her decision-making process. Miranda Doyle, in a review for the School Library Journal, found the book to be "a rather ordinary tale of teen pregnancy." However, Olivia Durant, writing for Kliatt, considered Hart's work to be "a realistic look at the emotional process a young woman might go through if she became pregnant."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2006, review of Butterflies in May, p. 460.

Kliatt, July, 2006, Olivia Durant, review of Butterflies in May, p. 19.

School Library Journal, October, 2006, Miranda Doyle, review of Butterflies in May, p. 156.

ONLINE

Bancroft Press Web site,http://www.bancroftpress.com/ (February 17, 2007), author biography and interview.