Konek, Carol Wolfe 1934-

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KONEK, Carol Wolfe 1934-

PERSONAL:

Born January 6, 1934, in Meade, KS; married John Konek; children: Jill, J. D., Jana, Jeff. Education: University of Kansas, B.S., 1960; Wichita State University, M.A., 1968; University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Wichita State University Center for Women's Studies, 525 Linquist Hall, 1845 Fair-mount, Wichita, KS 67260-0082.

CAREER:

Educator and author. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts, associate dean and instructor of English and women's studies, 1970-2004. Served on boards of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Young Women's Christian Association Alzheimer's Association, and Lifeline.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Price Woodard, Jr., Award, National Conference for Community and Justice, 2003.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Dorothy Walters) I Hear My Sisters Saying: Poems by Twentieth-Century Women, Crowell (New York, NY), 1976.

(With Sally Kitch and Fran Majors) The Source Book: An Inductive Approach to Composition, Longman (New York, NY), 1981.

Daddyboy: A Memoir, Graywolf Press (St. Paul, MN), 1991.

(Editor, with Sally Kitch) Women and Careers: Issues and Challenges, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 1994.

Contributor to periodicals, including Peace Review, ReaL, Hectate, Affilia, So to Speak, Changes, Heresies, and Mikrokosmos.

SIDELIGHTS:

A former college dean and professor of women's studies, Carol Wolfe Konek has throughout her career focused on issues of interest to women. In addition to teaching courses on global women's issues, leadership techniques, and writing family stories, she has published poetry, a book about teaching writing, and her own family's story in Daddyboy: A Memoir, a "vivid and moving reminiscence," to quote a Publishers Weekly reviewer. In this work, an early contribution to the burgeoning personal literature about mental deterioration, she chronicles her father's experiences with Alzheimer's disease, examines her ways of coping with her father's illness, and reminisces about her childhood relationship with her father, an ardent socialist and feminist. Writing the work was cathartic for Konek, who took extensive notes while meeting with her father's physicians and then described her firsthand experiences. Daddyboy alternates between contemporary events and flashbacks as Konek relates her father's sad story. Although she acknowledges that the writing process helped her cope, she is not sure that readers of Daddyboy will benefit in the same way. "You wonder if it's best that some see what's going to happen in two weeks, or two months or two years" Konek told Chicago Sun-Times reporter Michael Bates. "Maybe some people are better off it they don't know that." Indeed, a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who described Konek's chronicles as "thoughtfully considered and beautifully described," also predicted that the work will not cheer readers with relatives suffering from Alzheimers.