Challenging perceptions of discrimination and prejudice, this emotionally resonant drama for readers of Lisa Wingate and Jodi Picoult explores three different women navigating challenges in a changing school district--and in their lives.When an impoverished school district loses its accreditation and the affluent community of Crystal Ridge has no choice but to open their school doors, the lives of three very different women converge: Camille Gray--the wife of an executive, mother of three, long-standing PTA chairwoman and champion fundraiser--faced with a shocking discovery that threatens to tear her picture-perfect world apart at the seams. Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption but she is struggling with a happily-ever-after so much harder than she anticipated. Twenty-two-year-old Anaya Jones--the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation she's stepped into. Tensions rise within and without, culminating in an unforeseen event that impacts them all. This story explores the implicit biases impacting American society, and asks the ultimate question: What does it mean to be human? Why are we so quick to put labels on each other and categorize people as "this" or "that", when such complexity exists in each person?
Pick up your copy here...
https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Ever-Asked-Novel/dp/1601429045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521592602&sr=1-1&keywords=no+one+ever+asked+katie+ganshert
Welcome Katie...
1. Tell us about your new novel, No One Ever Asked.
No One Ever Asked is a
story about three very different women whose lives are brought together when an
impoverished school district loses its accreditation and the affluent community
of Crystal Ridge has no choice but to open their school doors. Camille Gray is the
wife of a corporate executive, mother of three, and a long-standing PTO
chairwoman. Jen Covington is a newly adoptive mom who’s struggling with a
happily-ever-after so much more difficult than she anticipated. And Anaya Jones
is the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at
Crystal Ridge’s top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation
she’s stepped into. It’s a story that explores the implicit bias impacting
American society, and asks the ultimate question: What does it mean to be
human?
2. What inspired you to share this story?
A couple years ago, I was
listening to an episode on a popular podcast called This American Life. The episode was titled, ‘The Problem We All
Live With’, featuring investigative reporter, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who covers
race in the United States. She was sharing about a modern-day integration
story, wherein a Missouri school district comprised almost entirely of
low-income, black and brown students lost their accreditation, triggering a law
that allowed these students to transfer to a mostly white, affluent school
district nearby. The podcast included several sound bites from a town meeting
held in one of the affluent district’s high schools, and the pushback from the
parents was shocking. I couldn’t believe it was from 2013. It was a story that
captivated me about a topic that impassions me. So when it came time to write
my next novel, this was where my heart kept returning.
3. The book is told from the perspectives of
three main characters with different experiences and backgrounds. What did your
research process look like to accurately capture each of their voices and
stories?
Writing a book truly takes a village, especially a book
like this one! I’ve never been on the PTA, and I’ve never organized a color run
(a district-wide fundraising event that takes place in the story), but I have
friends who have, and they let me interview them. While I am an adoptive
mother, like Jen, I’m not very familiar with the struggles that often come with
adopting an older child. I’m part of a Facebook group much like the one Jen is
a part of in the novel, so I reached out to the moms in that group quite often
with specific questions. As far as things in Anaya’s life that are unique to
the black experience, I listened to a lot of people, and I read a plethora of
books, memoirs, and articles, all of which helped bring authenticity to Anaya’s
character.
4. How can readers engage in racial
reconciliation in their own homes and communities? What are some good resources
that can point readers in the right direction?
If you’re white, I think the most important starting place
is listening to people of color. Tune into black voices. Follow people on
Twitter. Watch documentaries. Listen to sermons. Read books and poetry (check
out The New Jim Crow by Michelle
Alexander, or Just Mercy by Bryan
Stevenson, or Citizen by Claudia
Rankine). There is so much information out there. Join Latasha Morrison’s Be
The Bridge Group on Facebook. Subscribe and listen to Pass the Mic, the
official podcast for The Witness, a black Christian collective. Check out Scene
on Radio’s ‘Seeing White’, a fourteen part podcast series. If you’re a parent,
start talking about these issues with your children around the dinner table.
Talk to your friends at church. Learn about your community’s racial history.
Educate yourself about the current issues in your city and how these issues
impact communities of color. Use your vote in such a way that reflects your
desire for racial reconciliation. Find and support organizations in your area
that are already doing the work. The Bible has so much to say about this topic.
Let what it says guide you on your journey. Resist the urge to defend yourself
or center yourself. Resist the urge to minimize pain or explain away another’s
experience. Sit in the tension. Press through the confusion. Don’t retreat if
you make a mistake. We all make mistakes. Keep on listening. Don’t succumb to
white guilt. Rather, use your privilege to remove yokes of oppression, wherever
and whenever you find them in your midst.
5. What are you currently reading?
I just finished listening to Every Last One by Anna Quindlen on audio, and holy buckets! Talk
about heart wrenching. She captivated me with her honest prose, and when I
reached the part in the book where the title is first mentioned, I literally
gasped out loud. It’s definitely not a light read, but it is a moving one. I’m
also reading Becky Wade’s Her One and
Only, which has had me laughing out loud at several points, and smiling big
throughout. She writes wonderful romance!
