Local Counseling Center Hosts Book Launch for Blind Author

Irmo, SC, February 26, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Friends and colleagues of a local Professional Counselor who has been legally blind since birth will help her celebrate the publication of her first book at a party on Saturday, March 21 at Crossroads Counseling Center in Irmo SC.

Larue Bettis, Executive Director of Crossroads, is hosting the launch party for Carmella Broome. Carmella works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families at the agency’s Lexington location.

“We just wanted to help Carmella celebrate getting her book published,” said Mrs. Bettis. “I’ve watched her pursue and achieve some important goals as a counselor and its exciting to see her achieve success as an author.”

The book, titled Carmella’s Quest: Taking On College Sight Unseen, chronicles the author's first year at North Greenville University (formerly North Greenville College) in upstate South Carolina.

“The book is about my efforts to adjust to college life in my first venture away from home,” said Miss Broome, who grew up in the small town of Beech Island SC and currently lives in Columbia. “It’s essentially about my struggle to accept my visual limitations, but it’s also about my freshman year experience in general and the friendships and romances that helped me balance academics with a social life.”

Carmella admits that, as much as she enjoys learning, relationships are always more interesting to her. She is the only counselor at Crossroads to hold state licenses in both Professional Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy.

Family members and friends from various parts of South Carolina will be traveling to Irmo for the celebration. The launch party will last from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and will include refreshments and a reading from her book by Ms. Broome. Carmella will also sign copies of the book’s first edition for guests.

Carmella appreciates the irony. “Working as a counselor means I spend a lot of time listening to other people’s life stories,” she says. “This time, I get to take my counselor hat off and be the one telling the stories.”

Counselors at Crossroads have been helping residents of Lexington and Irmo, as well as the outlying areas of Chapin, Gilbert, Pelion, and Swansea, for nearly eleven years. Carmella has been employed by the agency since the summer of 2005.

Carmella’s Quest: Taking On College Sight Unseen is published by Red Letter Press of Columbia. The book is currently available directly from the publisher and through Amazon.

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