NEW BOOK EXPLORES THE PLIGHT OF A LOST IMMIGRANT
A new author has emerged onto the literary scene. While this may not really seem like news, as new books are published daily, this author is one we can claim as our own. Carolyn K. Boehlke is a native of Stevens Point, Wisconsin and spent every summer at her grandparents’ cottage on Long Lake in Waushara County. Though she has since moved to Minnesota, her parents still live at the family cabin. Boehlke has been a writer since childhood, and after attending school at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota, she moved the Minneapolis where she achieved her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Hamline University. She now lives in Minneapolis with her husband and children and works in White Bear Lake. Carolyn’s first book “Chasing the Moon” (North Star Press, Inc.) will be released June 1, 2013.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants arrive on the borders of the United States from Mexico. These families are all in search of an elusive dream – one that promises a better life than what they are leaving behind. While hundreds of thousands are also deported back to their homelands, there are those who slip through, travel anonymously and invisibly through the country, still searching for a life that offers more than they had. This is the story of one immigrant girl.
CHASING THE MOON – When her family is captured by the Border Patrol as they enter illegally into the country, Nadia Alvarez, a fifteen-year-old immigrant from Mexico, is suddenly alone. She faces the reality of allowing herself to be captured as well and be reunited with her family, or carrying out her parents’ dream of a better life in America. Living on the heavily patrolled border of Arizona and Mexico, Nadia lives the life of an anonymous migrant, scrambling to make money for a family she has lost. When her living and job conditions take a dark and twisted turn, Nadia flees Arizona for the promise of something better in the heart of the Midwest: Minneapolis. There, she struggles to find the American life her family wanted, an idea that comes to take on new meaning as she faces the reality of living illegally, constantly torn between new opportunities and a fierce loyalty to her homeland.
AN OPEN DISCUSSION – Immigration is a passionately debated topic, one that carves deep convictions on both sides. Carolyn K. Boehlke’s novel is a unique and unbiased perspective, allowing a story to unfold of an immigrant who is also just a teenage girl. Thrust into a migrant’s life by her parents’ dreams, she recognizes both the desires to create a better life and the illegal struggle that choice presents. As she battles her morals, she also calls into question what it truly means to belong – to be home and take ownership of her place in the world.
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If you’d like more information about Carolyn, her book, or to schedule an author or book event, please visit her website at www.carolynkboehlke.weebly.com.