Thursday 20 October 2011

National Academy of Writing Anthology Book Launch

Nine months, 150 pages, 35,000 words, 4 characters, 3 countries later....two chapters of my novel in progress, working title TITUS SPARROW PARK will feature along with 11 other writers in the NAW (National Academy of Writing) soon to be published Anthology on 9th November in Foyles in London.

In a sentence, here's the plot:  A woman goes in search of her daughter's mother. 


Titus Sparrow Park by C.B. Williams interweaves stories of three characters into a tapestry of love and loss that stretches from the west of Ireland and London to New York City and Boston. At its heart is the love of a widowed mother for her adopted daughter and the personal and physical journey she takes to insure that her daughter will never be alone.

Iris Bowen, widow, mother, gardener, and blogger, is prompted to search for her daughter’s mother when her health is jeopardized. Her daughter must not be alone in the world. All Iris has is a twenty-year-old envelope with an address in Boston. 

In New York City, Rowan Blake, bachelor and landscape architect, is on his own journey. In danger of losing the company he founded with former lover and current business partner, Lilian, his life is unraveling. He’s arrived at a place where he feels no connection to the world, where the things he’s been working for mean nothing, and where the person who held the most influence over his life, Grandfather Burdoch, suddenly dies.

In London, Rose, gifted young violinist at the Royal Academy, is coming to terms with the loss of her father. She’s trying to lose herself in music, live between the staves, rise to the impossible demands of a brilliant but irascible teacher in England’s oldest conservatoire. But no matter how she practices it seems she is never good enough. Her teacher hates her, or is perhaps a little in love with her.

Over one long hot blue summer in Boston, New York, London, and the west of Ireland, these characters and their stories entwine with life-altering consequences. Titus Sparrow Park is a novel about hope, about what happens when your life comes to a full stop.  It’s about carrying on, about the comfort of strangers and the surprising connections that unite us all. All journeys lead to Sparrow Titus Park as the characters discover they too are inextricably linked – like plants in a bed, lines in an architectural sketch, notations in a musical composition.

An accessible literary novel, Titus Sparrow Park is told through multiple narratives, explores the belief that love comes in many shades and hues, and along the spectrum it is the sacrifices we make for those we love which ultimately restore and sustain us. 

To love selflessly is our gift.




       






Thursday 6 October 2011



World's Best Dog... R.I.P.

Huckleberry, Kiltumper's Golden Retriever, passed away a few weeks ago.  We're all sad.  He was one week shy of his 15th birthday.

When I look at his photo, it makes me cry...When I round the corner of the boreen that passes in front of our house into our drive my reflexes prepare to be welcomed by him.  But he's not there.