Karen Hunter is on a mission to get us all reading again. As part of that mission, she has revived her award-winning literary enterprise, Karen Hunter Publishing, and The Gift of a Journey is the second awe-inspiring release from her greatly anticipated resurgence.
The Gift of a Journey, a story inspired by husband-and-wife writing duo D. Kevin Hunter and Alicia Hunter’s real-life experiences, follows the travels of two mourning doves and their search for a welcoming home. Trumpeted as a “celebration of family in all forms,” The Gift of a Journey reveals what is possible when you are open to nature’s lessons.”
“We met at Virginia Union University, an HBCU in Richmond, Virginia. Go Panthers! It was 1997, my first year of college, and Kevin was a Junior at the time. I had seen Kevin around campus for a couple of weeks, always thinking to myself, ‘What happy and kind eyes he has.’ He had a joyous kind of energy about himself,” Alicia shares. “One day, I’m downstairs playing cards with a couple of friends in the recreation room of our dorm. I saw Kevin standing by the pool table. My heart was pounding out of my chest, but I still stood up.”
“And she walks over and taps me on my shoulder,” Kevin chimes in. “I turn around, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ and move out of her way, thinking that I was blocking her or something. And she says, ‘No, I wanted to know if you would like to play cards with me and my friends?’ I looked her up and down and said, “I sure can.” We’ve been together ever since and married for 17 years this September.”
The journey to bring their book to fruition has been challenging, but their determination and dedication have been inexhaustible.
“We wanted to put out something that radiates goodness and is uplifting for children/adults to gravitate to amidst all of the turmoil in the world. Now the backstory is this- we got there in a very roundabout way, as you’ll see,” Kevin tells TheHub.news. “First, we’re huge movie fans- all genres. So, over 10 years ago, we were inspired and decided to start writing a screenplay for a romantic comedy that features characters loosely based on us. The plot has a fun and heartwarming supernatural twist. Over the years, we’ve edited and revised our screenplay many times.”
“Fairly recently, we decided to start entering it into screenplay writing competitions as a vehicle to get additional constructive feedback. We’ve placed semi-finals for one competition, quarterfinals for another, and honorable mention for another. Definitely motivating for us,” says Alicia. “The screenplay that we have now is so much more than what it was when we originally started it. We also realize that many of the evaluators are people who don’t necessarily share our lived experiences. One day, we’re hoping for the right set of eyes to land on it to help us take it to the next level (thinking of Gina Prince-Bythewood or Kenya Barris!). Okay, so fast forward to the spring of 2023.”
According to TheNationalLiteracyInstitute.org, 79% of US adults were literate in 2024, while 21% were illiterate. This means that 54% of adults have a literacy level below 6th grade, and 20% are below 5th grade. The average American reads at a 7th- to 8th-grade level.
So, what inspired this whimsical story?
Kevin then begins to tell the story of the pair of mourning doves who graced their balcony that spring. The Hunters started to pay close attention to their new feathered friends and were in awe of the events that unfolded before their very eyes over the next two months. They began to record the doves, and Alicia, a teacher, shared the footage with her students and colleagues.
Alicia was first introduced to the idea of creating a children’s picture book during a conversation with Roxanne Feldman, her school librarian friend.
“That was a lightbulb moment for me,” declares Alicia. “It was also intriguing because we had never worked on that type of creative writing project together before. I went home and talked to Kevin about it, and we started brainstorming all of the possibilities for the character and story arc.”
“Once we had teased out the overall vision of the story and characters, I started using my lunch breaks at work to write portions of the story,” adds Kevin. “Once Alicia got home from work, I’d show her what I had and she’d give me feedback. Then, we would tweak things as needed. That’s basically how we laid out the bones of the manuscript.'”
Soon after Alicia’s conversation with her colleague, Kevin received a call on his birthday from his sister, Karen. Karen was not only intrigued by the concept but championed the couple to turn their dreams into reality.
“Karen has successfully authored and published many books over the years, so I saw this as a special opportunity for us, as brother and sister, to work on this project together, especially since one of the major themes of our book is the importance of family,” Kevin enthused.
The Hunters then sought out illustrator Bar Fabian, who helped bring their vision to life.
“We are so grateful for Bar’s partnership on this project. She was super professional and always responsive to our feedback. When we were ready to proceed with the illustration portion of this project, we sent Bar our detailed notes for each page about what we envisioned and identified areas in which she had creative freedom,” Alicia shared. “She’d create several rough sketches at a time and reach out to get our feedback. We’d give her feedback, which she would incorporate, and then move on to the next set of illustrations. Whenever something was unclear to her, she would ask questions for clarity. What’s astounding is that she did a lot of this work while dealing with the fallout of the Oct. 7 attack, as she lives in Israel. We would totally work with Bar for future projects.”
According to IBISWorld, a company that provides industry research and analysis for businesses of all sizes, the children’s book publishing industry increased 2.3% in 2023. With such high competition within the ever-expanding industry, what makes The Gift of a Journey stand out from the rest?
“Our children’s book captures the importance of slowing down in this fast-paced and often mean-spirited world to appreciate the nature and beauty that’s all around us. When we think of birds in flight, we think of rhythm and flow, so that’s why we decided to incorporate a rhyming sequence into our book,” Alicia states. “We also thought about how fortunate we were to have been chosen by those mourning doves to bear witness to what partnership and family looks like to them. We wondered how many places they traveled before feeling comfortable enough to stay in proximity to us. Had we been preoccupied and caught up in the busyness of life, we wouldn’t have noticed them and may have taken that whole experience for granted. Our story shows that some of life’s greatest lessons aren’t taught by humans. There’s so much that we can learn from other beings, and we have a responsibility to be of service to them and each other in meaningful ways. We’re all interconnected.”
Karen Hunter Publishing also helped Kevin and Alicia to record an audiobook, which will be available on Audible by July 22.
“It was definitely more exciting for me to work on the audiobook. I was able to display another one of my talents which is music production. It was thrilling hashing out a melody from one of my songs that I’ve written and using it for this project. I enlisted the help of a producer I used to work with named Calvin Gaines to help bring my vision to reality,” Kevin mused. “We also had never done character voice work before. It was a lot of fun coming up with the voices for the audiobook. Before recording the audiobook, Alicia and I went back and forth over who would do the voice for each character and we’d play around with different iterations of it.”
For every book sold, 5 cents will be donated to the Black Rock Forest, a non-profit organization located in Cornwall, NY.
“I have the privilege of serving as an institutional board member for Black Rock Forest,” Alicia explains. “The 3,920-acre forest is run by a phenomenal team of individuals prioritizing nature education, conservation, and research. As a science educator, I look forward to taking my students to the forest each spring so that they can get experiential learning in the field. It’s a transformative experience for many of them and a special place that helps people connect to the large array of biodiversity within. Because it’s a private forest, its operation depends largely upon the dues of consortium member institutions, generous donors and grants. With climate change being what it is, there are more extreme weather events that have caused damage throughout the forest. Making those repairs are often costly and anything that can be done to raise funds for and awareness about the beautiful lands of the forest, I’m all for it.”
The couple’s long-term vision for The Gift of a Journey is to use it as a vehicle to help promote the love and joy of reading and to promote it in a way that inspires that love and joy.
The Hunters are already working on a sequel which focuses on Journey’s growth after leaving the nest.
“We’ve also already written a few installations for a potential children’s book series that we could imagine being made into an animated series,” Alicia noted. “It teaches kids the importance of core values like empathy, gratitude, and integrity, and it does so in a fun kid-friendly way. We’re excited about what’s to come!”
The Gify of a Journey is now available on Kindle.
