Author Visit
Want to hear great stories about Iowa in 1905 while also learning about Norwegian Immigration to the Midwest? Come to the library to hear Ann Hanigan Kotz talk about her book and her family's experience of coming to Iowa from Norway.
Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 6:00 PM Meeting room A.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The Journey of Karoline Olsen by Ann Hanigan Kotz
Published by BookPress Publishing, copyright 2022
When her husband Kristoffer dies from a burst appendix in Iowa in 1905, middle-aged Karoline Olsen, mother of six, must make the 145-mile trip from Cedar Falls to Soldier by horse-drawn wagon to bring his body home. With the corpse on fast-melting ice, Karoline struggles to make good time across the rolling prairie during an exceptionally hot summer, recalling the story of their rocky marriage that brought them from Norway to the New World. The young couple, anxious and naïve, arrive in the United States in 1884, with hopes of establishing a farm among other Norwegian immigrants, but are met instead with constant battle against disease, famine, and poverty. A chronicle of the Olsens’ fight to survive in the undeveloped Midwest, to preserve tradition in a new context, and to protect their family from the ravages of pioneer living, The Journey of Karoline Olsen is the tale of a woman and a wife building the American Dream out of nothing but the dirt on which she stands.
Ann Hanigan Kotz’s debut novel of love, loss, and heartache is based on her own family’s heritage, traced back to its roots and reimagined through a fiction akin to Faulkner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ann Hanigan Kotz was born in Denison, Iowa, and lived on a farm southwest of town with her parents and five siblings. During her summers, she spent time at the Carnegie Library, reading becoming a passion early in her life. She also stayed with Glenn and Alice Olson, her maternal grandparents, on their farm and visited other Norwegian family in the Loess Hills area. Ann remembers well her grandparents taking her to Soldier, Iowa, to visit her great-grandfather, Tingvald Olson. The smell of his pipe and the sound of his fiddle are images that found themselves in some of her story lines.
After high school, Ann attended the University of Northern Iowa and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. She started her education career in 1988 and continued teaching high school English for 33 years, finishing at Waukee High School in central Iowa. She also received a Master of Arts in Education from Viterbo University.
As a teacher, Ann was passionate about making her students better writers and readers. She credits her writing ability to studying and teaching the craft. Later in her profession, Ann taught college-level classes to high school students who themselves wanted to become teachers. Ann considers teaching one of the most honorable professions.
Retired from teaching, Ann Hanigan Kotz currently resides in Adel, Iowa, with her husband John Kotz.