Posts Tagged ‘Titanic’
Plan a visit to Sabin Howard’s WWI Memorial
If you have not heard of master sculptor Sabin Howard, it’s time you take a look at his powerful work. Art, Howard believes, “speaks to the divine nature of how the Universe is assembled.” Art comes from the human experience, he says, but through his work he also projects a “sacred element elevating other human beings.”…
Read MoreSwimming for your life with a book in your hands
How gratifying it was to read a recent review of my novel Sheltering Angel from a reader who recognized the work that went into writing the narrative. “Having read books about the sinking of Titanic,” she writes, “and gone so far as to visit the final resting places of some of the ship’s victims in…
Read MoreA heartbreaking visit to Lynnewood Hall
A while back I wrote about Lynnewood Hall, a mansion outside Philadelphia designed and built for Peter Widener, American businessman, art collector, and patriarch of the Widener family. Planned after Prior Park in Bath, England, the mansion was said to have cost eight million dollars to build. Widener was the father of George Widener who died…
Read MoreCobh, 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…
Read MoreThe 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…
Read MorePierpont ~ 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…
Read MoreMadeleine 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.…
Read MoreMeet 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…
Read MoreMeet a fiery Titanic stewardess
In my novel Sheltering Angel, you’ll get to know Titanic second-class steward Violet Jessop. Here is a closer look at this sizzling beauty. During the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century, hordes of Irish left their country for Canada, the U.S., and especially Argentina where they hoped the pampas would provide more fertile land…
Read MoreThe irony of one Titan and two Titanic passengers
Wendy Weil Rush, wife of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush who perished in the recent implosion of the Titan submersible, has been noted for being the great-great-granddaughter of Titanic first-class passengers Isidor and Ida Straus. I can’t help but wonder at the irony of Rush’s fervor for taking people deep into the North Atlantic to see…
Read More