NAPLES, FL, February 16, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Karen J. McWilliams continued to be included in Marquis Who's Who which is now listed in online biographical volumes. Her profile was selected on the basis of current reference value, position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field at the time of her selection.
An award winning writer and distinguished professional in the publishing industry, Ms. McWilliams has made a tremendous impact which began during her first year teaching second graders in Diamond Springs, California. Her students' end-of-year tests outperformed all classes and grade levels in the entire school. She then continued her success teaching third graders in Redlands, California until she joined the Department of Defense Overseas Schools in Germany as well as in the Philippines and Japan where she taught multiple grade levels. She then completed her Master's Degree in Educational Technology and Library Science at San Diego State University before becoming an elementary school librarian on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.
After being hired in the US Virgin Islands, Ms. McWilliams assessed her library's collections and discovered they were severely lacking materials with African-Americans in them as well as other ethnicities. The 70+ teachers in her elementary school taught approximately 1200 students who were dark skinned. The children were from every island in the Caribbean as well as a few from Asian and Middle Eastern countries. But none were Caucasians. The majority of library books in the 40 other public schools on St. Croix also were lacking multicultural characters. And that motivated Ms. McWilliams to research Caribbean history and take an excellent correspondence course from the Institute of Children's Literature in Danbury, CT which taught her the basics of writing children and YA books.
After years of researching American and Caribbean documents as well as reading hundreds of slave narratives found in archives and the Library of Congress, Ms. McWilliams began to write the books she was meant to write for the thousands of island kids she had taught and befriended. In 1986 Ms. McWilliams won the Society of Children's Book Writers Award for Pirates later published by Franklin Watts Publisher. She thought the door had swung open for more book projects because Pirates had successfully sold throughout the world. She sent many proposals and manuscripts to agents and editors, but she did not receive book publishing offers.
At the same time Ms. McWilliams wrote book proposals and her historical novels, she wrote book reviews for SCBWI and Independent Publisher Magazine, articles for Writers Digest, The Writer, and Independent Publisher, test questions for Harcourt Brace and Pearson Educational Measurement Companies as well as annually judged children's books for the IPPY and Moonbeam Awards.
Ms. McWilliams authored books in her historical fiction series, PLANTATIONS and PIRATES, for Middle Grade and Young Adult children. Each of the novels in her series has a different locale, is in a different era, and has different family and friend dynamics as well as different relationships with the plantation owners. The Author's Note, in the back of each book, explains how the books' stories are woven around actual events. Ms. McWilliams wrote, rewrote, and had several readers read each of her novels and give her feedback. Also, since many fugitive slaves signed aboard pirate ships, Ms. McWilliams included well-known pirates and fictional pirates in several of the following Kindle books.
1. The Journal of Darien Dexter Duff, an Emancipated Slave (Louisiana 1865) won first place in the "Royal Palm" Young Adult Fiction Award and was runner up for the William Faulkner William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in Louisiana.
2. The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo (South Carolina 1717-1718)
3. The Journal of Leroy Jeremiah Jones, a Fugitive Slave (Alabama 1855)
4. The Journal of Jack Black, a Fugitive Slave (North Carolina, Bahamas, Tortuga, Jamaica, St. Croix 1718)
5. The Diary of a Slave Girl, Camellia Cassandra (North Carolina 1725)
6. The Diary of a Black Seminole Girl, Ebony Noel (Florida, 1834) was runner up for the "Royal Palm" Award.
For the past few years editors have requested DIVERSE CHILDREN'S BOOK MANUSCRIPTS. However, the percentage of multicultural books remains far below the books with white protagonists and white secondary characters in them. Ms. McWilliams wants to teach all kids from every ethnicity how exciting and interesting history is by including her meticulously written books in schools' reading, writing, and history classes.
Ms. McWilliams was recently awarded The Contribution to Education Award as well as The Lifetime Achievement Award by MARQUIS WHO'S WHO 2017.
Visit http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1506562.Karen_McWilliams for a full list of her books.
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Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis now publishes many Who's Who titles, including Who's Who in America , Who's Who in the World , Who's Who in American Law , Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare , Who's Who in Science and Engineering , and Who's Who in Asia . Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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