STATUS

Heartwood is the working and hopeful title of Timothy’s first novel and current top priority in the Wordshop.

PREVIEW

This fictitious story begins in the 1950s and is set in all three geographic regions of North Carolina – its mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain. The redbud tree, Cercis canadensis, in its flowering red glory of spring and distinctive heart-shaped leaves in summer turned golden in autumn, ties the beginning of the novel to its surprise ending. A silk thread, so to speak.

A boy grows up on Cedrow Circle, a b-shaped subdivision, in the company of good parents, happy siblings, and neighborhood friends of interesting sorts. Fields, woods, and creeks border and limit their range of childhood adventuring.

Boy becomes a young man and goes off to college with no particular career in mind; he just wants to learn everything he can about the natural sciences – especially trees. Young man meets young woman, a mathematics major, in calculus class.

His mischievous tendencies and her unyielding spirituality initially clash, but recognition of the goodness in each other soon renders them inseparable.

What then becomes of them?