, who specialized in narrative nonfiction (and cookies!) addressing complex, sometimes controversial, subjects, died on May 19 in her hometown of Dallas, following a heart attack. She was sixty-one.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Blumenthal was born and raised in Dallas, where she loved reading and visits to the public library, crediting Harriet the Spy<\/em> by Louise Fitzhugh for inspiring her to become a journalist. Blumenthal was yearbook editor and class valedictorian at Hillcrest High School. At Duke University, she became editor of the university\u2019s newspaper. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Blumenthal began her career at the Dallas Morning News<\/em>, then accepted a position at the Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s Dallas bureau as a reporter and editor. Blumenthal returned to the Morning News<\/em> as business editor in 1994 and became the Journal<\/em>\u2019s Dallas bureau chief from 1996 to 2004. She performed editing work on a WSJ<\/em> piece about 9\/11 which won a Pulitzer Prize.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
According to Publishers Weekly<\/em>, when her own daughters became readers, Blumenthal grew frustrated with the nonfiction titles available to them. Her desire to change the situation spurred her to try writing for young people. Her first published book was Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929 <\/em>(Atheneum, 2002). Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America <\/em>(Atheneum, 2005) followed, and Blumenthal knew she wanted to continue on the path of exploring complex and sometimes controversial topics in this format. By 2006, Blumenthal left her full-time position at the Journal<\/em> to be a freelance writer, though she continued with the paper as a personal finance columnist until 2013.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Blumenthal wrote nine titles for young readers, including her most recent, Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights<\/em>, published by Roaring Brook in February. She also wrote three business titles for adults. Her books have won a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, a Jane Addams Children\u2019s Book Award, the Kentucky Bluegrass Award, and she was a finalist for YALSA\u2019s Award for Nonfiction three times.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Emily Feinberg, Blumenthal\u2019s editor at Roaring Brook, said: \u201cI feel so lucky to have gotten to know Karen, and to have worked so closely with her on her most recent book,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I was editing Jane Against the World<\/em>, Karen and I would joke that most of my comments in track changes weren\u2019t edits at all; they were me writing WTF next to a fact about a horrible deed or poisonous law. When I learned that she passed away, all I could think was that I want to write WTF in the margin, but she won\u2019t be able to respond.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Feinberg continued, \u201cKaren was the best of us all. She was humble and curious. Brilliant and kind. She was unstoppable. If she needed an interview or an answer, I\u2019m convinced she didn\u2019t sleep until she got what she wanted. She was a journalist through and through and was committed fully to the truth\u2014both finding it and delivering it to young readers. Our world is less now because she\u2019s not in it. I\u2019ll miss her very much.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Blumenthal chaired the board of Friends of the Dallas Public Library for two years and served on the Dallas Public Library board beginning in 2011. She was recently appointed its vice chair. Sarah Losinger, the library board chair for the past eight years, told the Morning News<\/em> that she was having a hard time processing the news. \u201cShe was so energetic,\u201d said Losinger, who represents Council District 13. \u201cYou can just see Karen furrowing her eyebrows and taking something on. I\u2019m just sinking. I just can\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Blumenthal is survived by her mother, brother, several nieces and nephews, her husband, fellow journalist Scott McCartney, and their two daughters, who told the Morning News<\/em> that anyone who wants to honor Blumenthal can do so by \u201cworking to repair the world and enjoying a great cookie.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A remembrance of Dallas writer Karen Blumenthal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[813,1000,830,812],"class_list":["post-2101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lonestarremembers","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-texas-author"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}