Released on = May 29, 2007, 7:00 am

Press Release Author = The University of Texas at San Antonio

Industry = Education

Press Release Summary = Like a lot of nontraditional students who have come through
UTSA, Karen Roth held a variety of odd jobs before committing herself to higher
education: she painted houses, waited tables and once owned two women\'s shoe stores.
Now Roth, who is associate director of the Tomás Rivera Center for Student Success
at the UTSA Downtown Campus, has added another title to her long résumé: novelist.

Press Release Body = Like a lot of nontraditional students who have come through
UTSA, Karen Roth held a variety of odd jobs before committing herself to higher
education: she painted houses, waited tables and once owned two women\'s shoe stores.
Now Roth, who is associate director of the Tomás Rivera Center for Student Success
at the UTSA Downtown Campus, has added another title to her long résumé: novelist.


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In 2006, Roth, who earned both her bachelor\'s and masters degrees at UTSA,
independently published her first novel, \"Found on 16th Street.\" The Depression-era
tale is set in a Czech community in Roth\'s hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In
writing the book, she wanted to honor her own Czech heritage and to immortalize a
vibrant community and way of life that largely vanished after World War II, when
immigrants her parents\' age wanted to assimilate into the American lifestyle.

\"That\'s my goal for writing historical fiction,\" she says, \"that people will find
out about different cultures and how people had different world views. But you do
all this with the thrill of a story, of a narrative, rather than reading a dry
history book.\"

Roth studied literature and journalism at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, but got
married, dropped out of school and moved away by the time she was 20. She eventually
completed her bachelor\'s degree at UTSA in 1996 and, a month later, joined the staff
of the university as a developmental reading and writing specialist. In 2000, she
became coordinator of the learning assistance program and later the same year earned
a master\'s in adult higher education.

\"I was 35 when I came back [to school], and I was just like a fish put back into
water,\" she says. \"The fact of the matter is working at a university is very
inspiring. I\'m energized by the time I spend with students.\"

Similarly, the tale in \"Found on 16th Street\" is an inspirational one, and Roth says
one of the reasons she wrote the book was because she sees a lack of spiritually
themed literature in bookstores and on the bestseller lists.

\"[There\'s] nothing about personal growth, or nothing that inspired and uplifted me,
and that\'s what I want out of a story,\" she says. \"My stories are about people in
transformation. That\'s the best story in the world, when you see a person coming out
of difficulty or heartbreak or neglect, and you get to see that person begin to grow
and change and really step out into the person they can be.\"

That\'s a story Roth sees played out daily in her work at UTSA, and she enjoys
encouraging others to pursue their goals.

\"A lifetime truly can be an adventure of learning. Don\'t ever give up on yourself
because you think it\'s too late,\" she says. \"That\'s something I\'m seeing from this
experience -- it\'s never over.\"

While Roth says she\'s thrilled and relieved to see her first novel in print, her
career as a novelist isn\'t over, either. She has two more novels in the works, one
of which is a sequel to \"Found on 16th Street,\" and while she continues to do book
signings and other publicity to promote her first novel, she\'s also trying to sell
the two new books to publishers.

\"If no one buys them, I\'m going to go ahead and publish them anyway because I love
to write so much,\" she says. \"For me, this has brought back the joy of learning.
It\'s the joy of doing something that you want to do, the joy of putting your whole
heart into something for the sheer love of the work that you\'re doing.\"


Web Site = http://www.utsa.edu/today/2007/05/roth.cfm?header

Contact Details = The University of Texas at San Antonio.
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, TX 78249-1644
(210) 458-4011
Contact Form: https://www.utsa.edu/directory/contact/?siteID