‘Hawk’s Cry’ drops March 25 at Orphanage book signing

Luann Koester's second novel focuses on two boys a century apart at Summit Springs massacre

The Orphanage will host Luanne Atkin Koester at a book signing March 25 for her latest novel, “Hawk’s Cry, The Story of a Cheyenne Hero.”

Koester, author of the awardswinning “Gran Kissed the Blarney Stone,” taught high school language arts for over 26 years, as well as college composition. A fellow of the National and Colorado Writing Projects, she considers herself a writer teaching writers. In addition to historical fiction for teens, young adults, and adults who simply enjoy a good story, even if the protagonist is a youngster, Koester writes children’s books and poetry.

Koester graduated cum laude from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Colorado College, and a Post Graduate Certificate of Expertise in Writing from the University of Denver. In 2003 and 2021, she was recognized by the Boettcher Foundation as a Boettcher Educator. And In 2009, Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Koester an MIT Influential Educator.

Now retired, Koester enjoys writing, facilitating writing workshops, traveling, spending time with her immediate and extended families, and playing golf. In addition to Hawk’s Cry, The Story of a Cheyenne Hero, Koester has published a children’s picture book, Gran Kissed the Blarney Stone, and two of her poems are published in Rise, an Anthology of Change, winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Awards, Best Anthology. Koester lives on a cattle ranch near White Butte Creek in northeastern Colorado.

“Hawk’s Cry, The Story of a Cheyenne Hero” is a gripping and sensitive tale of two boys, one White and one Indigenous. They share a landscape and separate coming-of-age moments, one in the present and the other in 1869 during the Battle of Summit Springs.

“The Cheyenne people lost much in 1860s Colorado, and Hawk’s Cry gives voice to some of that loss,” writes Anne Hyde, Professor of History, Editor-in-chief of the Western Historical Quar

terly, and Pulitzer Prize finalist for A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860. The late Laurie Wagner Buyers Jamison, novelist and award-winning memoirist and poet said, “I found Hawk’s Cry to be one of the most compelling and richly-written stories for young people that I have ever read.” Karen Hartman, a retired high school English teacher, director of the Colorado Writing Project, and Young Adult Literature expert and speaker writes, “Hawk’s Cry is a wonderful text for social studies and history classes grades 6-9th, or as a choice book in English classes for students interested in history and who love a good story.”

Luann Koester’s book signing and reading takes place on Saturday, March 25, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Orphanage, 300 S. Main Street, Yuma. Light refreshments will be served.