On Thursday, March 26, 2009, from noon to 1pm, professional counselor Carmella Broome will discuss her first book, Carmella’s Quest. Carmella, who has been legally blind since birth, has written Carmella’s Quest: Taking on College Sight Unseen, which chronicles the author's first year at North Greenville University in upstate South Carolina.
The book is published by, and available through, Red Letter Press of Columbia. Throughout the twenty-six chapters of this straight-forward memoir, Carmella describes her efforts to adjust to college life and academics, friendships and romantic relationships, struggles with accepting her visual limitations, and other experiences that took place during the 1994-1995 academic year.
Carmella, who grew up in Beech Island and now lives in Columbia, says this book has been a work in progress since the summer of 1995. While she's had a few articles and essays published during the past few years, the author says she felt unable to give this bigger writing project the time and attention it deserved. "I'd put it down for months at a time but always came back to it," she says. "I knew I wanted it published one day and that I'd know when the time was right."
Carmella is also working with the State Library’s Talking Book Services to get her book available in recorded and electronic formats for other readers who are unable to read standard print. “This is new territory for me,” she admits, “But I’m excited about sharing something I’m proud of with readers who will hopefully appreciate and enjoy it, including other people who are blind."
Wherever she goes to promote Carmella’s Quest, her guide dog, a yellow Labrador retriever named Maggie, will be by Carmella's side. "She's very cute," Carmella says, "I'm sure she'll convince at least a few people to buy a book."
This lunchtime program is presented by the State Library's South Carolina Center for the Book, the South Carolina affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The SC Center for the Book is a cooperative project of the State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and The Humanities Council SC. This program is FREE and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring a bag lunch. The program is located in Room 309 of the State Library's Administrative Building at 1430 Senate Street.
