Cathy Williams-Thrun's Blog
October 27, 2020
NYC Big Book Award - National Recognition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cathy Williams-Thrun, cathythrun.author@gmail.com, www.cathywilliamsthrun.ca
Cathy Williams-Thrun receives national recognition through the NEW YORK CITY BIG BOOK AWARD®!
[Ontario, Canada] -- The NYC BIG BOOK AWARD> recognized Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother’s Journey to Forgiveness by Cathy Williams-Thrun in the category of Memoir as a Distinguished Favorite.
The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters. Selected award winners and distinguished favorites are based on overall excellence.
Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother’s Journey to Forgiveness, a memoir by Cathy Williams-Thrun is one women’s discovery of what teenage birth mother’s, adoptive families, and sorrowful choices made long ago can have in common: the kind of love that sometimes overcomes everything and may well move each party towards a happy ending after all. Anyone who enjoys reading gripping personal interest stories with the ability to make readers cry one moment and jump up and cheer the next will adore DOES SHE THINK OF ME. And those who believe concepts like “family love” are dead in this day and age will be proved utterly mistaken.
In 2020, the NYC Big Book Award once again achieved worldwide participation. Entries remained strong during the worldwide pandemic. Book submissions streamed in from six continents and over 100 cities. Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America all participated. Across the globe, book entries poured in from places such as Budapest, Capetown, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York City, Port of Spain, Vancouver and Victoria to name a few. Winners were recognized globally from Australia, Canada, England, India, Singapore, Uganda and the United States of America among others.
The breadth of publishers ranged from Amazon to Wiley, from Black Rose Writing to She Writes Press. Our award-winning authors are from all kinds of different backgrounds and enrich the program. We are proud of such diversity of winners and distinguished favorites in the annual NYC Big Book Award.
“We are pleased to highlight these books, recognize their excellence, and share their achievements.” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak. The awards program “foments a strong interest in these authors and publishing houses and we expect our winners and favorites to receive a heightened level of attention.” Olczak went on to say that "excellent books can be found globally, and we are happy to help bring them to a larger audience.”
For more information, please visit: www.nycbigbookaward.com.
To view the list of winners, visit https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020w... Distinguished Favorites listed here: https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020d....
Contact: Cathy Williams-Thrun, cathythrun.author@gmail.com, www.cathywilliamsthrun.ca
Cathy Williams-Thrun receives national recognition through the NEW YORK CITY BIG BOOK AWARD®!
[Ontario, Canada] -- The NYC BIG BOOK AWARD> recognized Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother’s Journey to Forgiveness by Cathy Williams-Thrun in the category of Memoir as a Distinguished Favorite.
The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters. Selected award winners and distinguished favorites are based on overall excellence.
Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother’s Journey to Forgiveness, a memoir by Cathy Williams-Thrun is one women’s discovery of what teenage birth mother’s, adoptive families, and sorrowful choices made long ago can have in common: the kind of love that sometimes overcomes everything and may well move each party towards a happy ending after all. Anyone who enjoys reading gripping personal interest stories with the ability to make readers cry one moment and jump up and cheer the next will adore DOES SHE THINK OF ME. And those who believe concepts like “family love” are dead in this day and age will be proved utterly mistaken.
In 2020, the NYC Big Book Award once again achieved worldwide participation. Entries remained strong during the worldwide pandemic. Book submissions streamed in from six continents and over 100 cities. Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America all participated. Across the globe, book entries poured in from places such as Budapest, Capetown, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York City, Port of Spain, Vancouver and Victoria to name a few. Winners were recognized globally from Australia, Canada, England, India, Singapore, Uganda and the United States of America among others.
The breadth of publishers ranged from Amazon to Wiley, from Black Rose Writing to She Writes Press. Our award-winning authors are from all kinds of different backgrounds and enrich the program. We are proud of such diversity of winners and distinguished favorites in the annual NYC Big Book Award.
“We are pleased to highlight these books, recognize their excellence, and share their achievements.” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak. The awards program “foments a strong interest in these authors and publishing houses and we expect our winners and favorites to receive a heightened level of attention.” Olczak went on to say that "excellent books can be found globally, and we are happy to help bring them to a larger audience.”
For more information, please visit: www.nycbigbookaward.com.
To view the list of winners, visit https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020w... Distinguished Favorites listed here: https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020d....
May 10, 2020
Indie Reader 5 Star Review
DOES SHE THINK OF ME by Cathy Williams-Thrun is a resoundingly wonderful, touching, soulful look at the personal issues involved in adopted children and birth parents refinding each other. Keep tissues handy.
-------------------------
IR Approved
Memoir, Nonfiction
Posted by C.S. Holmes | April 29, 2020
-------------------------
Synopsis:
DOES SHE THINK OF ME by Cathy Williams-Thrun is one woman's discovery of what teenage birth mothers, adoptive families, and sorrowful choices made long ago can have in common: the kind of love that sometimes overcomes everything and may well move each party towards a happy ending after all.
Anyone who enjoys reading gripping personal interest stories with the ability to make readers cry one moment and jump up and cheer the next will adore DOES SHE THINK OF ME. And those who believe concepts like “family love” are dead in this day and age will be proved utterly mistaken.
For a woman who never intended to share an account of the raw, private details inherent in giving up a child for adoption as a teen with anyone but that child–should she be lucky enough to someday locate her–author Cathy Williams-Thrun has produced a masterpiece of a memoir likely to touch the hearts of everyone, including people who have never been parents, and perhaps even including people who no longer believe in love. “For nineteen years and eight months (7178.3 days, 620,205,120 seconds) I internally grieved the loss of my first born” she pens, laying her heart bare on the eve of potentially reuniting with the daughter only surreptitiously glimpsed once, before the tiny infant was whisked away into the halls of organized adoption processes. And by this time the reader is equally invested in how the long-yearned-for reunion will go. Will it happen, or will the now 19-year-old Kelly or her adoptive parents have second thoughts about opening such a potentially painful door? And if reconnecting with the daughter she gave away to another family does happen, will it go well? How has Kelly felt all these years about having a birth-mother, birth-father, and biological sisters she’s never met?
At times stunning in its simplicity, DOES SHE THINK OF ME reveals just how excruciating it was for Williams-Thrun to have quite a large extended family, none of whom offered her frightened 17-year-old self the kind of support that would have helped her keep her first child. (Or, to be more factual, no offers she actually got to hear.) Instead, her own mother–struggling with mental health issues–and her own father, who was struggling to stay sober, moved their immediate family from Newfoundland to Calgary in order to avoid the “badge of shame” teen pregnancies still insured in the 1970s, even though Williams-Thrun’s baby daddy was actually the love of her life, whom she did later marry and bear two other legally-sanctioned daughters with. Could different choices have been made? Perhaps. Can the people involved in this real life tale forgive themselves and each other for the choices that were made? Pick up a copy of this powerfully moving memoir and find out.
DOES SHE THINK OF ME by Cathy Williams-Thrun is a resoundingly wonderful, touching, soulful look at the personal issues involved in adopted children and birth parents refinding each other. Keep tissues handy.
~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader
Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother's Journey to Forgiveness
Available on Amazon, Indigo and Barnes & Noble
-------------------------
IR Approved
Memoir, Nonfiction
Posted by C.S. Holmes | April 29, 2020
-------------------------
Synopsis:
DOES SHE THINK OF ME by Cathy Williams-Thrun is one woman's discovery of what teenage birth mothers, adoptive families, and sorrowful choices made long ago can have in common: the kind of love that sometimes overcomes everything and may well move each party towards a happy ending after all.
Anyone who enjoys reading gripping personal interest stories with the ability to make readers cry one moment and jump up and cheer the next will adore DOES SHE THINK OF ME. And those who believe concepts like “family love” are dead in this day and age will be proved utterly mistaken.
For a woman who never intended to share an account of the raw, private details inherent in giving up a child for adoption as a teen with anyone but that child–should she be lucky enough to someday locate her–author Cathy Williams-Thrun has produced a masterpiece of a memoir likely to touch the hearts of everyone, including people who have never been parents, and perhaps even including people who no longer believe in love. “For nineteen years and eight months (7178.3 days, 620,205,120 seconds) I internally grieved the loss of my first born” she pens, laying her heart bare on the eve of potentially reuniting with the daughter only surreptitiously glimpsed once, before the tiny infant was whisked away into the halls of organized adoption processes. And by this time the reader is equally invested in how the long-yearned-for reunion will go. Will it happen, or will the now 19-year-old Kelly or her adoptive parents have second thoughts about opening such a potentially painful door? And if reconnecting with the daughter she gave away to another family does happen, will it go well? How has Kelly felt all these years about having a birth-mother, birth-father, and biological sisters she’s never met?
At times stunning in its simplicity, DOES SHE THINK OF ME reveals just how excruciating it was for Williams-Thrun to have quite a large extended family, none of whom offered her frightened 17-year-old self the kind of support that would have helped her keep her first child. (Or, to be more factual, no offers she actually got to hear.) Instead, her own mother–struggling with mental health issues–and her own father, who was struggling to stay sober, moved their immediate family from Newfoundland to Calgary in order to avoid the “badge of shame” teen pregnancies still insured in the 1970s, even though Williams-Thrun’s baby daddy was actually the love of her life, whom she did later marry and bear two other legally-sanctioned daughters with. Could different choices have been made? Perhaps. Can the people involved in this real life tale forgive themselves and each other for the choices that were made? Pick up a copy of this powerfully moving memoir and find out.
DOES SHE THINK OF ME by Cathy Williams-Thrun is a resoundingly wonderful, touching, soulful look at the personal issues involved in adopted children and birth parents refinding each other. Keep tissues handy.
~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader
Does She Think of Me: A Birth Mother's Journey to Forgiveness
Available on Amazon, Indigo and Barnes & Noble
