Yale College, Psychology
Columbia University, Medicine
U. of Pennsylvania, Sociology (Criminology)
UCLA Writing

Paly prepared me enough to go head to head with kids from all over the U.S. (esp.private school kids in the northeast), and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

Moreover, Paly and Jordan and Green Gables gave me a balanced, more realistic life experience than those residential, single-sex prep schools in the East.

Palo Alto schools gave me the foundation that allowed me to get the advanced education necessary to have a fulfilling career as a professor which has meant research, writing, travel (for sabbaticals and educational documentaries), and the enviable task of influencing and being influenced by eternally-young students.

My experience of being bullied as a child and my friendship with Joan Baez and her mentor Ira Sandperl motivated me to study violence of all sorts--from schoolyard incidents to international ones.
After nine years of schooling in the East, I returned home to the Bay Area in the 1970s to teach courses on violence, revolution and social movements, segueing to crime and delinquency in the 1980s and then terrorism and police studies in the late 1990s --- mostly in response to changing student interests.

My research work has resulted in 14 refereed articles (many based on Oakland Police Department data), several monographs, and 25 nationally broadcast and distributed educational videos.
I was a Visiting Scholar at the British Centre for Violence Studies at the University of Manchester in 2000 and 2007

I'm blessed with a feisty partner who gave me two wonderful, if not challenging, kids. My wife, my kids, and our dog have forced me to keep fit in order to keep up. And as a result I've managed to stay healthy.

Lest this all sound too perfect, I have had enough setbacks to fill a book. Read on below, if you wish, about these.

The Vietnam War in the 1960s was a turning point in American culture, values, politics, and socio-economic life--just as the Great Depression was in the 1930s. Since both we '61ers and our parents came of age during these respective watershed periods, I figured they would provide an interesting back drop for my book filled with many Paly and Palo Alto stories.

One of the key events in my first mainstream book, Cleft Heart, though, contains a tragedy involving one of the people closest to me, perhaps closest of all. And it involved violence…the very phenomenon I was studying in grad school in order to understand,
Don't want to give too much away, as the book is intended to be a page-turner of sorts.

My dream of writing mainstream books --after writing several academic books—came true in 2013 and again in 2024. Fortunately, both books have drawn praise from reviewers.

PRIVILEGED KILLERS is a true story of sociopaths who live and work among us. It explores, among other things:
-betrayal, deception, and abandonment
-secret, double lives
-white, male privilege in action
-disconnects between the ideal and real, and
-the fragility of idealism
It's a cautionary tale, though filled with hope, and a story that has lessons and insights for us all.
Plus it shines a light on a world many readers know little about: criminology.
To see, go to https://ow.ly/KOOC50SkuXo

CLEFT HEART Chasing Normal. 2nd ed.
"Cleft Heart by writer Karl Schonborn is the first and only book ever published about the cleft lip and palate experience by a cleft-affected person. It’s odd, however, that his book should be a publishing '
'First,' given that clefts are one of the most common birth defects in the U.S. Two million Americans either have cleft lips/palates or have a family member so afflicted.

By choosing to review Cleft Heart, you can help readers experience how it feels to be bullied for nasal speech and for the heart defect that sidelined the author from sports. By choosing to donate your book to health professionals who'll share it with parents of handicapped/disabled kids, you'll let kids know how to compensate, resist being marginalized, and respond effectively to bullies."

Other praise for the book:
“A Powerful and Moving Memoir”
“Awesome book about overcoming obstacles”
“Felt like I lived it”
“Unless allowed a 6th star, I cannot recommend it more highly”
“And ‘David slew his Goliaths’”
“A lesson in honesty and courage”
“Perfect Title - Powerful and Provocative Book”
For more about the latested edition, please visit https://ow.ly/tpZA50SnWm9 .

Write, exercise, paint, and travel - esp.to see kids and grandkids.