True Story of Survival Opens Minds and Dialogues about Mental Health
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Mark Henick stood precariously on the wrong side of the railing on a crumbling, concrete overpass. The bridge spanned two realities and, for Henick, had become a symbol of escape — in one form or another. A voice behind him tried to help. A crowd gathered. Siren lights flashed in his peripheral vision. Surrounded but still alone, Henick let go.
So-Called Normal: A Memoir of Family, Depression and Resilience from Mark Henick is a vital and triumphant story of perseverance and recovery by one of North America’s foremost advocates for mental health
Henick’s near-death experience on the overpass that night would alter his emotional orbit just enough that his exit from a psychiatric ward following that suicide attempt in 2003 would be his last. His transformation didn’t happen overnight — it was a gradual process punctuated with new challenges and setbacks — but slowly, his patterns reversed and he began a profound, “upward” spiral toward recovery.
So-Called Normal chronicles Henick’s youth and the events that led to that fateful night on the bridge and the experiences and transformation that followed. It is a vivid and personal account of a boy who had to deal with the breakdown of his parents’ marriage, an abusive stepfather, bullying and trauma — all while trying to navigate his progressively worsening mental health. In the backdrop is a community that didn’t talk about mental illness, one where silence and maintaining the comforts of “normal” was paramount. So-Called Normal is not a “misery memoir” about suicide — it’s a gripping, inspirational story of survival.
Author Mark Henick’s TEDx talk about being saved from death by a stranger is one of the most watched in the world and has been viewed millions of times. His search for “the man in the brown jacket” whose bravery and strong arms kept him from falling to his death went viral around the world (and was successful!). Henick has been on television and radio and has written many articles on mental health. He has hosted more than 60 intimate conversations about mental health with notable public figures and celebrities on his podcast, So-Called Normal, and has executive produced and hosted the Living Well podcast for Morneau Shepell. Henick has served on the board of directors for the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and was the president of a provincial division of the Canadian Mental Health Association — the youngest person in either role. He has worked as a frontline clinician, a program manager and the national director of strategic initiatives for CMHA. Currently the CEO and principal strategist for Strategic Mental Health Consulting, Mark Henick is in high demand as an international keynote speaker on mental health recovery.
So-Called Normal: A Memoir of Family, Depression and Resilience Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: January 12, 2021 ISBN-10: 1443455032 ISBN-13: 978-1443455039 Available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Audible and others
Trish Stevens Teresa Hinojosa Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 832.569.5773 Direct 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
Former Topgun Instructor Takes Readers On The Ride Of A Lifetime
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Dave Baranek knows exactly what it means to “ride into the danger zone.” In his new release, Tomcat RIO, he plants readers firmly in the cockpit of the legendary F-14 Tomcat fighter, blazing along at twice the speed of sound seven miles above the ocean and the carrier that hurled it off its deck.
Tomcat RIO is a superbly crafted book that pulls readers into the exciting world of the F-14 and Navy carrier operations. Readers can ride along as Baranek expertly shares all the stomach-dropping thrills of dogfighting and the pulse-pounding tension of patrolling the skies over Iraq with the ability to launch a 100-mile Phoenix missile at the touch of a button.
An expert in fighter tactics and aircraft carrier operations, Baranek (whose call sign is “Bio”) ascended to the command of an F-14 fighter squadron of more than 300 people, and he shares the challenges and unexpected trials that come with leading a squadron in the dynamic environment of Naval Aviation.
Full of adventures, lessons and inspiration, Tomcat RIO also includes dozens of Bio’s best and most acclaimed photos, including one that’s been hailed by photographer George Hall as “one of the best Tomcat photos ever taken.”
Bio immerses readers in rich detail, where they can practically smell the jet exhaust and feel the gut-wrenching g-forces. Tomcat RIO pitches readers into the thick of it as only Bio can tell it. Strap in, and get ready for a wild ride!
Dave “Bio” Baranek is also the author of Topgun Days and Before Topgun Days. He enjoyed a successful and satisfying 20-year career in the United States Navy, starting with assignments to F-14 Tomcat squadrons and the elite Topgun training program as an instructor, and on to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US 7th Fleet. Baranek retired from the Navy in 1999 and is now a defense contractor. He is married and lives in Satellite Beach, Florida.
Tomcat RIO Publisher: Skyhorse Release Date: September 2020 (est.) ISBN-10: 1510748229 ISBN-13: 978-1510748224 Available online from Amazon, Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and others
Trish Stevens Brian Johnson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Theology and Politics Collide in Reality-Inspired Cold War Thriller
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When Pope John Paul I died of an apparent heart attack in September 1978—just 33 days after his election—the United States and the Soviet Union went on high alert.
The United States could loosen communism’s stranglehold on Eastern Europe if a non-Italian successor is chosen to lead the Catholic Church. Conversely, the Soviets are determined to keep an Italian in the papacy. A dangerous competition ensues as the two countries aim to further their own interests while limiting those of the other party. CIA and KGB agents infiltrate the Vatican as Cold War tensions mount amid the backdrop of a hastily arranged conclave to elect a successor.
Meanwhile, back in the states, army officer Carter Caldwell is sent to persuade American cardinals to wield their influence in the conclave. He meets beautiful CIA analyst Katherine O’Connor. Carter can’t get her out of his mind, although plenty of problems demand his attention.
Before the conclave is over, the Sistine Chapel will be bugged, a spy in the Vatican’s kitchen will be murdered, and CIA and KGB operatives will exchange gunfire. As the most important figure in the Catholic world is finally chosen, one question remains: Will he survive long enough to become pope?
Conclave from Tom Davis weaves an in-depth thriller where Catholic theology and Cold War politics collide. The result is a gripping, fictionalized retelling of what might have happened as these real-world events unfolded.
Was the election of non-Italian Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II in October 1978 somehow orchestrated through the US’s covert influence on the papal conclave? Today, his election is viewed as a turning point in the Cold War—just 13 years later, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Warsaw Pact disintegrated.
Author Tom Davis is a retired army officer and corporate executive. After graduating from West Point, he had numerous assignments and experiences in the army, including commanding an artillery battalion in Operation Desert Storm, being a key advisor to a Secretary of the Army and several Army Chiefs of Staff, and serving as an Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at West Point, where he taught International Relations, Political Science, Economics and Middle Eastern Affairs. He served a brief tour in the Department of State as part of the Palestinian Autonomy negotiating team, where he heard a story that inspired Conclave.
After retiring from the army, Davis had a successful career with General Dynamics Corpora-tion. He has written numerous articles and editorials for major newspapers on a wide range of topics, and has published major studies on federal budgeting and the management of the nation’s national security programs. His previous book, 40 Kilometers Into Lebanon, analyzes the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He holds degrees from the US Military Academy at West Point and Harvard University. He retired from General Dynamics in 2013, and is currently the Forrestal-Richardson Industry Chair at Defense Acquisition University and an adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School.
Conclave has captured the attention of an independent film company based in Germany and has been converted into a screenplay for future development into a six-episode mini-series.
Conclave Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN-10: 1534706615 ISBN-13: 978-1534706613 Available from Amazon.com and www.tomdavisauthor.com
Trish Stevens Anna Jones Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Find the Career that Fits Perfectly: The Tools are at Your Fingertips
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Why do so many people stay in unrewarding careers? Fear of change? Lack of updated skills? Whatever the case, staying in an unfulfilling job prevents you from doing what you really want to do. The pandemic taught us that we can pivot and innovate faster than we ever thought possible, so why not restart your career with a renewed vision and a clearer path forward?
Elevate Your Career: Live a Life You’re Truly Proud Of from experienced career development coach Helen Horyza brilliantly demonstrates how you can design a career that aligns with your interests and talents by discovering what makes you truly happy.
“The path to a thriving career requires self reflection to discover what values are important to you and to identify the types of work that hold real meaning,” Horyza writes. “It also demands patience and persistence.”
Through a series of true stories, Horyza illustrates how people from all walks of life and education levels can create a career that is literally a perfect fit—even if you don’t know what your “passion” is yet.
In addition to these real-world examples, Elevate Your Career includes valuable tools that readers can use right away to reassess their career paths. First, the Elevate Career Cycle method, which is explained in the book, can help readers uncover their passion by pinpoint-ing their interests and unique talents. Also included with the book is a coupon code for the Elevations Career Assessment, which synthesizes values, skills, interests and personality in the context of contemporary careers. Individuals who complete the assessment receive a fo-cused report complete with valuable decision-making tools. The result is a comprehensive model for smart and healthy career development.
No matter where you are in your evolving career journey—college student, executive or someone looking to course-correct—this book will provide you with the tools and the momen-tum you need to elevate your career.
Helen Horyza is an expert in the fields of career development and employee development, engagement and retention. She is an accomplished trainer, motivational speaker and execu-tive coach. She holds a Master of Science degree in Career Counseling from California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), and is a professionally trained coach through Coach Training International. She is a Nationally Certified Career Counselor (NCCC) and has over 20 years of experience uncovering talent and directing it to achieve extraordinary results.
Horyza is comfortable inspiring audiences large and small with her authentic, approachable style. She is the inventor and author of the Elevations® suite of assessments designed to assist individuals in career transition or to enhance employee engagement. Elevations® is utilized in colleges, universities and in consultant practices around the world.
She has used her own advice to re-career and is opening the Career Coach Entrepreneur Academy in the fall, a training program for people interested in becoming career coaches.
Elevate Your Career: Live a Life You’re Truly Proud Of Publisher: Merack ISBN-10: 1949635384 ISBN-13: 978-1949635386 Available from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and Helenhoryza.com
Trish Stevens Karen Anderson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Science And Love Hold Hands In New Quasi-Fiction Release: What Love Feels Like
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Love and science may seem like strange bedfellows, but in a new quasi-fiction collaboration by authors Dave Cunningham and C.K. Tyler, the two subjects dance together in a strange kind of harmony. Science turns its focus on love and tries to find a practical answer to a mystical question: What does love feel like?
Luke and Dawn, both in their mid-60’s, met via Match.com and fell in love. Their passionate, storybook romance ended when Luke died of brain cancer. Dawn returned home from the funeral to the shock of hearing Luke’s voice and seeing his face on her computer. His brain had been uploaded into her PC before he died, part of an experiment for which he volunteered – but never told her about.
Luke existed in virtual reality, and researchers asked Dawn to participate in the experiment by becoming wired into the same reality, where she could experience Luke and his magical, “anything is possible” universe with all five senses. As they did in life, the virtual Luke and Dawn explored the meaning of love: Is it something rare and mystical, or just chemical reactions in the brain? In fact, these questions were the focus of the experiment.
What is new love like in one’s golden years? Can a digital copy of the human brain feel love? Can “old dogs” learn new tricks about love? What happens to a person who craves love but can no longer receive it?
These and other questions are explored in a series of real love letters and the storyline of What Love Feels Like: The Dawn of Human 2.0, a tale that’s relatable to lovers of all ages.
Authors Dave Cunningham and C.K. Tyler live in the Pacific Northwest. Visit their website at www.whatlovefeelslike.net
What Love Feels Like: The Dawn of Human 2.0 Publisher: John Hunt Publishing, Ltd. ISBN: 978 1 78904 371 6 ISBN: 978 1 78904 372 3 (ebook) Available from Amazon.com and johnhuntpublishing.com
Trish Stevens Mandy Williams Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Locked in the Endless Loop of Foster Care, One Desperate Boy Struggles to Break Free
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Silas Dillon enjoys a full life now. At 40 years old, he’s a married father of four, foster father of six and minister to his church’s devoted flock. The joyful background noises of his houseful of children is a stark contrast to his lonesome beginning, when his birth mother, in the throes of heroin withdrawal, abandoned him the day after he was born.
Silas Dillon of Cary County is the sobering story of Silas Dillon, who ping-ponged between eight foster homes and two attempts at re-placement with his birth mother by the time he was 14 years old.
Told with gripping authenticity by author Cliff Schrage, Silas Dillon of Cary County begins with Silas’ birth on a frigid winter night in the fictional suburb of Cary Island in the New York Bay. His life becomes a series of glimpses into different realities — some harsh and grossly neglectful; some unapologetically abusive; and some well-intentioned but unprepared. Each one serves as a gross reminder of the fractured, overwhelmed foster care system. Silas is repeatedly transplanted from house to house, but none of them becomes a home. And occasionally, his mother does just enough to satisfy a lenient judge, and he’s returned to her world of drug abuse and prostitution
Damaged, fragile and without hope, he draws the attention of conscientious young social worker Molly Fresh, and this sets the stage for Silas to one day find the nurturing family and promising future that every child deserves.
Silas Dillon of Cary County is a candid look inside a typical foster care system that outwardly champions for the best interest of the children, but in reality, caters to the see-sawing whims of biological parents. Readers will witness Silas’ growing loneliness, alienation, anger and self-destructive nature, as he struggles to cope through his youth and early adulthood. Silas Dillon represents hundreds of thousands of young ones locked in a broken system. Will he be one of the lucky few who break free?
Author Cliff Schrage is a two-time published novelist — A Fruitful Field and Silas Dillon of Cary County — and published poet: Broken Prose, Spoken Poems. He has worked as a chaplain, and he taught high school English for 33 years. He is the father of eight children — two biological and six adopted (foreign and domestic) — and has endured the trauma of losing a child to a terminal illness. He has been married to his wife, Sherry, for more than 40 years.
Silas Dillon of Cary County Publisher: Morgan James Publishing ISBN-10: 1683502833 ISBN-13: 978-1683502838 Available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and MorganJamesPublishing.com
Trish Stevens Sophie Carter Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
Holistic, Science-Backed Program Helps Build a Healthier Relationship with Food, Eating and Weight
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Could a dietary lifestyle that nourishes us physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially be the answer to stemming America’s rising tide of overeating and obesity?
Original research points to yes, and in Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity, nutrition researcher Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., and behavioral scientist Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D., offer documented proof that by nourishing ourselves multi-dimensionally each time we eat, we can develop deeper, healthier relationships with food and eating that leads to attaining and maintaining weight loss. The authors’ Whole Person Integrative Eating (WPIE) program is not a diet that a person goes on … then off. WPIE is a scientifically sound, dietary lifestyle designed to be practiced for a lifetime.
“If people follow the revolutionary program outlined in this game-changing, insightful book, it may be the most helpful step they can take toward losing weight and keeping it off,” says bestselling author Kenneth Pelletier, M.D., clinical professor of medicine at University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco.
Divided into three parts, Whole Person Integrative Eating begins by describing seven root causes of overeating: Emotional Eating, Food Fretting, Fast Foodism, Sensory Disregard, Task Snacking, Unappetizing Atmosphere and Solo Dining. A Self-Assessment Quiz follows, with 76 questions to help readers identify their unique food choices and eating behaviors that lead to overeating and weight gain. Part Two provides a step-by-step guide to WPIE antidotes for each overeating style. It also explains why the elements of WPIE work and how they can be incorporated into daily life. And Part Three offers over 30 recipes based on the three main criteria of WPIE: fresh, whole and “inverse,” meaning mostly plant-based foods with small or no servings of animal-based foods.
An excerpt from the Foreword of Whole Person Integrative Eating by New York Times best-selling author Dean Ornish, M.D., Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California:
“[The book] offers an evidence-based alternative to the conventional wisdom about attaining and maintaining weight loss. What’s groundbreaking about Kesten and Scherwitz’s re-search is twofold: They have created a scientifically sound, comprehensive, and integrative program for treating overeating, overweight, and obesity based on these principles. And in addition to what (food choices) and how (eating behaviors) we eat, they have identified sev-en statistically significant root reasons to explain why we overeat: what they call “new normal overeating styles” and eating behaviors that also have a profound influence on how much we eat and weigh.”
The authors’ paradigm-shifting message is that food influences not only the physical dimensions of health, but also our emotional, spiritual and social well-being. Their dietary lifestyle can build bridges between the millions who struggle with overeating and weight issues and the medical community. And it can inspire us all to re-envision our relationships with food, eating and weight, so that each time we eat, we are nourished … for life.
Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., is an international nutrition researcher, award-winning author, and medical/health writer, with a specialty in preventing and reversing obesity and heart disease. She served as Nutritionist on Dean Ornish, M.D.’s first clinical trial for reversing heart disease through lifestyle changes, the results of which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. She has served as Director of Nutrition at cardiovascular clinics in Europe and on the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, San Francisco, for 10 years.
Kesten has published more than 400 nutrition and health articles. Her first book, Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul, received the first-place gold award in the Spirituality category from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Whole Person Integrative Eating has been honored with the #1 gold, best-book award in the Health category by Book Excellence Awards. She is a VIP Contributor at Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, and is married to behavioral scientist and co-author of Whole Person Integrative Eating, Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D.
Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity Publisher: White River Press ISBN-10: 1887043543 ISBN-13: 978-1887043540 Available from Amazon.com and integrativeeating.com
Trish Stevens Maria Jenson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
