Cobh, the saddest city in Ireland

As I’m writing this entry on the morning of March 17, I can’t help thinking about the two weeks I spent in Ireland earlier this month. The purpose of the trip was to learn more about HMS Titanic, the subject of my latest novel, Sheltering Angel, based on the true story of my husband’s great-grandparents who were…

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Sheltering Angel Outtake ~ The Tattoo Parlor

When I draft a book manuscript, inevitably I omit sections that don’t serve the plot. But I never completely delete them. Below is a short omitted section of Sheltering Angel telling of stewards Sid Siebert and Andrew Cunningham in New York around 1907.    By autumn Emily was in the final weeks before the new…

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The Wideners, the Titanic, and Lynnewood Hall

Sheltering Angel, my Titanic story, introduces a cast of people who actually endured or succumbed to the tragedy of April 15, 1912. Among the multimillionaires aboard the ill-fated ship’s maiden voyage were George Widener, his wife Eleanor, and their 27-year-old son Harry. One might consider the Wideners fortunate because of their extreme wealth, but a…

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ChatGBT is out to get you

If you aren’t familiar with ChatGBT, you’d better pay attention. According to the website WIRED, “If you’ve ever uploaded photos or art, written a review, ‘liked’ content, answered a question on Reddit, contributed to open source code, or done any number of other activities online, you’ve done free work for tech companies, because downloading all this…

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Writers being humbled…with humor

In my final semester in the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts (Fiction 2000), I was chosen to speak at graduation with a fellow in creative nonfiction. I suggested instead of coming up with a speech, we ask grads to give us their best lines from their mentors over the four…

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Sheltering Angel Outtake ~ Andrew in New York

  With no other opportunities, Andrew continued working aboard RMS Campania and mustered the good manners to be genial to his passengers. A steward was butler, dustman, and whipping boy, but he dared not let on he minded the duties—he needed the job. For him, the ship had become nothing more than the illusion of…

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Sheltering Angel Out-take ~ Andrew and the Northfleet

When I draft a book manuscript, inevitably I omit sections that don’t serve the plot. But I never completely delete them. Below is a short omitted section of Sheltering Angel that gives insight into Andrew Cunningham’s character.   Fog reminded me of rainy afternoons in Scotland when I was a lad. Da built a fire…

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Pierpont ~ 1907

If you’ve read my novel Sheltering Angel, you’ve met Andrew Cunningham, first-class steward aboard Titanic. Writing the novel, I cut sections to shorten the word count, because the scene didn’t support the plot of the story, and sometimes, as with the following outtake, because the episode is entirely made up. With historical fiction, imagination plays…

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Madeleine Astor ~ a tragedy within a tragedy

In my novel Sheltering Angel, based on a true story of the Titanic disaster, my characters Florence and Bradley Cumings spend time with John Jacob Astor and his young wife Madeleine. In many accounts of the maritime tragedy, Madeleine’s story ends in that spring of 1912—but her tale grows even more tragic as time passes.…

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Meet the most famous passenger aboard Titanic

Arguably the most esteemed passenger on the Titanic and one of the characters in my book Sheltering Angel: A Novel Based on a True Story of the Titanic was William Thomas Stead. According to the W.T. Stead website, he was “a newspaper revolutionary and one of the most controversial figures of his age.” Newsman, pacifist…

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