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Katherine Shonk

Born: 1968 in Chicago, Illinois
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Katherine was born in Chicago and raised in Evanston. She currently lives in Chicago.

Biography: Shonk attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, she studied psychology and began writing short stories. After graduating, she worked as a secretary and an editor in the Chicago area for several years. In late 1995, she moved to Moscow for a year. After returning to the United States, Shonk entered the M.A. program in creative writing at the University of Texas. After returning to Evanston in 1999, she worked long-distance as an editor and researcher for Harvard Business School.


Awards:
  • ''The Red Passport''
  • -- Society of Midland Authors Book Award, Honorable Mention for Adult Fiction, 2004
  • -- Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers; Young adult readers

Email: kshonk@hbs.edu
Website: http://www.katherineshonk.com
Katherine Shonk on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=katherine+shonk


Selected Titles

Happy now? /
ISBN: 0374281432 OCLC: 428895713

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York : ©2010.

Follows a woman's chaotic and often tragicomic journey through the weeks that follow her husband's suicide on Valentine's Day.

Happy now? :
ISBN: 9781429932042 OCLC: 872601437

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York : 2013.

HOW FAR WILL WE GO TO DENY THE DARKER SIDE OF OUR RELATIONSHIPS' HOW MUCH WILL WE RISK TO BE HAPPY' After many lonely years and alarming Internet dates, Claire Kessler, an artist and self-proclaimed homebody, believed she had found the perfect man. Jay was earnest, romantic, and gainfully employed, and within a year they were married. Less than two years later, Jay had killed himself. On Valentine's Day. Happy Now' follows Claire's chaotic and often tragicomic journey through the weeks that follow her husband's suicide. Nomie, Claire's pregnant younger sister, welcomes Claire into her guesthouse and abandons her own husband in solidarity. Claire's father turns into a concerned stalker, trailing her every movement. Encounters with well-meaning therapists go horribly awry, and Jay's abandoned cat goes on a hunger strike. All the while, Jay's suicide note lurks on the coffee table, waiting for Claire to gather the courage to read it. As she struggles to confront the truth about her marriage, Claire also struggles to negotiate life as a young widow'the well-intentioned remarks, the sympathy bouquets, and the terrifying prospect of dating (and loving) again. With wit and compassion, Katherine Shonk explores both the possibilities and the limitations of human relationships. Happy Now' is an uncommonly honest portrait of love, loss, and letting go.

The red passport
ISBN: 0312423314 OCLC: 83258562

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York : 2007, ©2003.

The red passport /
ISBN: 0374248478 OCLC: 51984750

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York : 2003.

"The unpredictable, poignant, and often comic stories that make up Katherine Shonk's The Red Passport portray the tumult, hopes, and setbacks of natives and foreigners alike in post-Communist Russia. Many of the Russians in these stories are strangers in their own country, learning to navigate a new landscape of Dunkin' Donuts franchises that flourish where consumer culture was so recently anathema; where the fall of the Soviet Union has not brought peace or prosperity; and where people still find a way to reach out for love, despite often disastrous results. "My Mother's Garden" is a parable of broken promises - an old woman living near Chernobyl does not understand why she can't eat those lovely, robust onions, better than any she's grown. "Our American" tells the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who watches with fascination and dread as his older brother, a veteran of the Chechen war, pursues the American girl next door. "The Young People of Moscow" describes an extraordinary day in the life of an aging couple selling Soviet poetry in an underground bazaar. A former American expatriate returns to Russia in "The Conversion" and, like a bull in a china shop, makes a mess of things with a young Russian couple who had once been his friends."--Jacket.

You can't enlarge the pie :
ISBN: 0465006310 OCLC: 46882833

Basic Books, New York : ©2001.

"When they learn how to negotiate and solve problems, students in management schools are taught two things. First, they are to look for and recognize any cognitive biases that may be affecting their own decisions about possible solutions. Second, in any disagreement, they are to seek out "wise tradeoffs": resolutions that minimize the costs and maximize the gains for all parties. Current and future executives are trained to craft agreements that create value by enlarging the pie of resources available, and to avoid the pitfalls that reduce organizational effectiveness."

 

 

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