Summer Lovin' Blog Tour: Karen Schreck Guest Post

“Love Can Conquer Any Distance . . . Right?” by Karen Schreck

        If you look closely at the cover of While He Was Away, you’ll see that the title of this post also serves as the caption for my novel.

         A caption that reminds me of another famous quote: 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

         And this one, which I always thought came from that wild novel from the 1970s, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but which, it turns out, is actually an ancient Chinese proverb: 

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was. 

         The only things that separate my book caption from the above quotes is that little . . . and the “Right?”

        And that little . . . and the “Right?” make all the difference in the world. At least to me.

        That little . . . and the “Right?” keep me from grinding my teeth down to the nubbins.

        Because the qualification, the doubt that is laced through the caption of While He Was Away brings up the conflict, the fear, the potential for loss, that most often goes hand-in-hand with . . . not being hand-in-hand with the one you love. Someone, for whatever reason, has to be at a distance, and it sucks, big-time. Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend didn’t go off to war, as Penna Weaver’s boyfriend, David O’Dell, does in While He Was Away. Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend just went on a long summer vacation, or to college. But separation of any kind can be a huge challenge. (Don’t you know it?) And it’s not just the quality or beauty or depth of your love that determines how it all plays out. Distance, and the places where we find ourselves when we’re apart, play a huge factor on how things work out. Or don’t.

        In While He Was Away, Penna Weaver throws herself into her work and her friendships, into solving a family mystery, into being a citizen of the world in order to deal with her separation from David.

        If you’ve ever been in a long distance relationship, how have you dealt with it?

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About Karen Schreck:

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.

(Photo and Author Info from Karen Schreck's Goodreads Page.)

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