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“Marie Pizano is an example of how you can overcome challenges to live with passion and purpose, and realize your ambitions. Her story can help empower and motivate others to find their Yes.” — Jack Canfield, Award-winning Author and Life Coach
Marie Pizano was once told that she makes coffee nervous, and for good reason. She has a bottomless well of energy that propels her forward no matter what forces are at work to hold her back.
“I’m generally prepared to jump off the cliff — with my stilettos on — and land on solid ground before I take off and go,” she says in her inspirational memoir, From Barefoot to Stilettos: Finding My Yes.
Her story is one of a woman who seeks purpose-driven endeavors that create change and redefine expectations. As the CEO and founder of MVP3 Entertainment Group, she used her expansive vision to launch a groundbreaking multipurpose complex in Memphis by partnering with Darnell Stitts of ATWEC Technologies to form MVP3 Studios & Partners, LLC. She also partnered with Melissa Harville-Lebron, the first African-American woman to own a NASCAR team, and they are joining forces for the upcoming NASCAR series.
But she is not all-business. She is also an impassioned community activist who spent the better part of 2020 advocating for a Tennessee amendment requiring divorcing parents to become educated on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — before being granted a divorce.
Giving back to the community and empowering others to rise up have been her driving forces since she could afford her first pair of stilettos. Finding My Yes is Pizano’s way of sharing the trials she endured and the triumphs she celebrated through humorous and heartfelt vignettes that elucidate simple but powerful life lessons. Ultimately, she hopes to encourage readers to ignore the haters, bolster their moral backbones, and ultimately, find their own “yes.”
“I believe that the universe gives back what you put out there, but I also believe that no matter how positive you are or how much you mediate or pray, some things are just out of your control,” Pizano says. “Sometimes things just happen, and sometimes life is just not fair. Regardless, you cannot give up.”
About the Author Born and raised in Chicago, Marie Valentina Pizano moved to Memphis in 1999. She has served on the boards of the International Children’s Foundation, the Women’s Foundation for Greater Memphis and The Commission on Missing & Exploited Children. She was co-founder of the Tiara Tea Society, chairperson for Go Red for Women and created “ROCK FOR HOPE” for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
She is a devoted mother of two and very passionate about film, music and community. The author, producer, radio/TV host and speaker is building her life and her company, MVP3 Entertainment Group, on truth and integrity.
From Barefoot to Stilettos is being made into a TV series, with Karyme Lozano (best known as an award-winning actress from Mexico) on board as writer. Pizano donates 10 percent of her book sales to charities that raise awareness and funding for survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking: Amanda’s Way (www.AmandasWay.org) and Thistle & Bee (www.ThistleandBee.org); and she is working with www.Rotary-FYI.com to educate the public on ACEs.
For more information, visit http://mariepizano.com/ or www.FromBarefootToStilettos.com.
From Barefoot to Stilettos, Finding My Yes Publisher: WaterSide Publishing ISBN-10: 194763755X ISBN-13: 978-1947637559 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Teresa Hinojosa Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 832.569.5773 Direct 281.333.3507 Phone [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
Embrace Your Imperfections and Embark Upon a Healing Journey with God as Your Guide
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Crippling fear permeated every aspect of Christine Soule’s life from an early age and followed her into adulthood. Her past of brokenness — abuse, dysfunction, addiction and other trauma — could have very well defined her future. But once she turned to God and let Him lead the way, she found a path toward a brighter future.
“The key is discovering who you are in Christ — your true identify. And that’s especially significant if you, like me, have a past of brokenness,” Soule writes in her inspirational story, Broken and Beautiful. “So much of how we see ourselves revolves around the demands our society places on us, insisting we live up to its expectations. Don’t listen to the world. Listen to God.”
Soule’s life was a jumbled pile of broken pieces. Her father was married seven times; her mother four times. Between her parents’ divorce when she was 5 years old and the day she allowed the power and presence of God into her heart, she watched her sister have an affair with her adoptive father; met 15 siblings she never knew at her biological father’s funeral; turned to drugs and alcohol; got pregnant at 17; had twins less than two years later; and became a victim of human trafficking. She had to break the cycle for the sake of her children. With nowhere else to turn, she dropped to her knees and prayed. And that’s when everything changed.
Broken and Beautiful is Soule’s remarkable story of how God took the pieces of her broken, astonishingly dysfunctional life and transformed it all into a breathtaking mosaic of joy and purpose.
“The places where you feel hopeless are exactly what He wants to redeem and fill with beauty, dignity and strength. He has a plan for your pain. A wonderful intention for your failures. A purpose for your hardest, darkest stories,” Soule writes.
Told with honesty and surprising touches of humor, Soule shares her journey from drug- addicted stripper to exuberant Jesus lover with a passion for helping others embrace God’s love. Broken and Beautiful is a raw, authentic story of hope, from a place of experience.
Author Christine Soule lives with the love of her life, Mitch Soule, in Seattle. They have five kids and three wonderful grandchildren. She is the founder and CEO of Providence Heights (www.providenceheights.org), a nonprofit created to house women and children in need and to provide counseling, education and jobs.
Broken and Beautiful: Let God Turn Your Mess into a Masterpiece ISBN-13: 979-8662957619 Available from Amazon.com (Broken and Beautiful), providenceheights.org and christinesoule.com
Parents and Educators: Both Can Help Children Attain Academic Heights
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Children who arrive at school with an emotional commitment to learn are ideally equipped to excel academically. A second factor in their learning success is the set of values that guides the lessons they’re taught during their most impressionable years (preschool–grade 5). These are among the insights of Dr. Cornelius Grove, who has spent decades exploring the cultural factors that affect children’s performance in classrooms.
Consider Dr. Grove’s 138-page book for parents, The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel. Here he explores the ways in which East Asian parents instill in their children respect for academic knowledge and receptiveness to the formal learning process. After a seven-chapter explanation of cultural values underlying East Asian parents’ mindset, he offers three chapters revealing their specific supportive practices. It’s an outline for action for American parents who deeply value academic learning.
A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel, is the 148-page companion volume to the above book. Dr. Grove examines the school side of the learning equation. East Asian lower-grade lessons gain the advantage because of their tenacious, narrow, yet multifaceted focus on the day’s topic. He addresses, among other things, how East Asians regard teaching and the reasons for pupils’ math superiority. Choice magazine (June issue) “highly recommends” this book for “general readers through faculty.”
“People who’ve had experience in unfamiliar cultures often remark that they now see their own culture with fresh eyes,” Dr. Grove explains. “It’s as though they’ve looked into a mirror and seen alternative possibilities for themselves. They realize that their usual ways of doing things are not etched in stone; instead, they’re choices. Different choices could be made.”
Although each book effortlessly stands alone, The Drive to Learn and A Mirror for Americans combine to encourage complementary reassessments by parents and lower-grade teachers about the more impactful roles they could be playing in upgrading the academic performance and the eventual college readiness of the youngest Americans.
For more detailed overviews, visit TheDriveToLearn.info and AMirrorForAmericans.info.
Author Cornelius N. Grove holds a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Johns Hopkins and a Doctor of Education from Columbia. He has had a decades-long fascination with the cultural factors that affect children’s ability to learn in school. At a 2005 conference in Singapore, he spoke about the two instructional styles found around the world. In 2013 he wrote The Aptitude Myth: How an Ancient Belief Came to Undermine Children’s Learning Today, a historical study of why most Americans believe that inborn ability determines school performance. For two recently published encyclopedias (2015 and 2017), he wrote entries on “pedagogy across cultures.” And now with A Mirror for Americans and The Drive to Learn, he is revealing the complementary roles home and school play in strengthening children’s academic capabilities.
The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland) Hardback: 978-1-4758-1509-2 Paperback: 978-1-4758-1510-8 eBook: 978-1-4758-1511-5 Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.
A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland) Hardback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4460-3 Paperback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4461-0 eBook: ISBN 978-1-4758-4462-7 Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.
Trish Stevens Teresa Hinojosa Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 832.569.5773 Direct 281.333.3507 Phone [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
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It seems that every day the news gets worse. Mass killings. Officer-involved shootings. Social upheaval. The pandemic. And everyone just trying their best to adjust to a new normal amid swirling unrest. It’s a lot for the brain to process. Do we react with fear? Anxiety? Anger? Or can we teach our brains to push pause and unpack the facts first, instead of allowing the seemingly endless stream of negative news to impact our mental, emotional and spiritual health?
Timothy R. Jennings, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist, master psychopharmacologist and highly sought-after speaker who regularly addresses the topic of brain health to both non-medical and medical audiences. His subjects include Major Depression in the Primary Care Setting and the Neurobiology of Depression, Alzheimer’s Dementia, Psychotherapy in Clinical Practice, Spirituality in Medicine, Depression and its Spiritual and Physical Connections — among many others.
A common thread among his discussion topics is how anxiety-inducing news and events can activate the brain’s stress pathways — thereby increasing the body’s inflammatory factors, diminishing immune response and increasing vulnerability to viral infections and cancer. The good news is, we can rewire the way our brains react to negative news and stressful events, and Dr. Jennings can explain how.
As a Christian psychiatrist, Dr. Jennings also speaks to design principles that, when embraced and followed, can lead to a better understanding of the world and bring about more peace.
As the world searches for a clear path toward physical and mental recovery, Dr. Jennings is uniquely poised to address the very serious subject of brain health from both scientific and spiritual perspectives — a much needed and welcomed approach during these extremely distressing times.
Dr. Jennings operates a private practice in Chattanooga and has successfully treated thousands of patients. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Life-Fellow of the Southern Psychiatric Association.
Trish Stevens Helen Cook Senior Publicist Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 903.654.0938 Direct 281.333.3507 Office [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
Serendipity Illuminates Ways to Prosper from Unexpected Events
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Happy accidents led to the invention of many things that we take for granted, such as the microwave oven, the phonograph and the curiously resilient CorningWare dishes. Maybe you don’t aspire to inventing a life-changing consumer product, but perhaps you’d like to switch career paths, meet new people or learn a new skill. Serendipity is all around you, and it can help you achieve personal and professional growth.
“In addition to the occasional case of the monumental, unexpected occurrence that may be researched and exploited, situations may arise that also lead to a useful and/or profitable outcome,” says Neil J. Farber, MD. “One can know what one wants to achieve but be unable to get to that outcome. … sometimes by chance, the way to proceed may appear.”
Dr. Farber’s new book, Serendipity: Utilizing Everyday Unexpected Events to Improve Your Life and Career, thoroughly explores the role that serendipity could play in our lives and explains that recognizing serendipitous events is better achieved with a certain set of skills.
“You have to have a mind-set that allows you to think that such events can happen,” he explains, adding that by practicing self-awareness and cultivating keen visual and auditory observational skills, we are more likely to spot even the most subtle of serendipitous happenings.
Serendipity describes how to understand the different types of serendipitous events and how they are common to all of us; how to recognize these events when they do occur; how to acquire the skills necessary to become more aware of serendipity; how to “connect the dots” to bring the serendipitous event to a fortuitous conclusion (that is, what skills, assistance and resources may be necessary); and what to do with the end product or idea if it is profitable, or as sometimes happens, when it is not.
Dr. Farber uses events recorded in literature and the history books, as well as events that have occurred in his own personal and professional life to create a helpful guide for recognizing and turning common events into meaningful moments.
Author Neil J. Farber is a Professor Emeritus of Clinical Medicine at University of California, San Diego, and a docent at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. He has been an academic internal medicine physician for 40 years, teaching, researching and providing patient care in medical schools initially on the East Coast. For the past 12 years, he was Professor of Clinical Medicine at University of California, San Diego, retiring at the end of April 2019. He has received numerous awards, including Top Doctor of San Diego five times, and is a member of the FDA Non-Prescription Drug Advisory Committee. He has published over 60 research papers and has had a multitude of serendipitous events occur, which have significantly (and positively) influenced his career and his personal life.
Serendipity: Utilizing Everyday Unexpected Events to Improve Your Life and Career Publisher: Boyle & Dalton ISBN: 978-1-63337-456-0 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-63337-457-7 (e-book) LCCN: 2020922389
Available from Amazon.com and BN.com
Trish Stevens Gwen Baker Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
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“About Natalie is groundbreaking. It doesn’t preach or pretend to offer a panacea. Instead, it offers a refreshing, authentic look at one family’s struggle with addiction, easily the most powerful book published on the subject in the 21st century.” — Dr. Maryel McKinley PhD, Addictions Expert, Former Co-Host, “All Talk Recovery Radio,” Los Angeles, Ar-bitron rated No. 1 in Southern California
Like the band that played on as the Titanic sank, Christine Naman unpacked the groceries and made a meatloaf — the simple act of normalcy distracting her from an unthinkable reality: addiction was pulling her daughter under.
“Even with the picture of the situation coming more clearly into focus, I clung to denial like a kayaker who has been thrown from his boat would cling to a branch lying across the water,” Christine says. “It is amazing how deep into denial a person can go and how strongly they can hang onto it before reality smacks them around enough so that they let go.”
Christine traces her daughter’s years-long battle with addiction in About Natalie, a gripping, cautionary tale of how, in spite of a loving family and a comfortable life, a child can end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her.
Interwoven with Christine’s reflections are Natalie’s compelling poems that share her personal pain and the unvarnished truth of her struggle.
At its core, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It is a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and never giving up.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
About Natalie Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 2021 ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2385-0 (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2386-7 (ePub) Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Chasm Between Father and Son at Center of Compelling Story of Love, Loss and Forgiveness
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Bill Smith’s father is an enigma. Could his praying and preaching the wholesomeness of Christianity be a cover for something unspeakably dark in his past? Each man’s lifelong struggle to retain his own integrity while learning to respect the other forms the foundation of The Home Stretch, a compelling exploration of a difficult father-son relationship and the complexity of bridging seemingly unbridgeable differences.
Award-winning author Wayne M. Johnston’s thoroughly absorbing, reality-based story is presented through the voice of everyman Bill Smith (loosely based on Johnston himself) who, throughout his life, is confronted with extraordinary circumstances. Raised in a religious cult, Bill’s unconventional upbringing and strained relationship with his father inform his life experiences and underwrite his formidable urge, from a young age, to simply escape this life altogether.
Bill struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, and embarks upon a career navigating the rough waters of the Pacific on a tugboat. His tales of weathering gale-force winds and violent storms at sea provide metaphorical undercurrents for Bill’s fraught relationship with his father, his failed early marriage, his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s and his own battle with leukemia, which he is told will kill him.
Just when Bill has come to believe he has put the worst of it to rest, he learns something more about his father that opens everything up again, except this time, Bill’s sister is the victim.
Ultimately, The Home Stretch is a powerful coming-of-age story for grownups that poignantly captures the unresolved emotions that surface when our past and present selves collide. Johnston gives readers candid glimpses into life-defining moments of reckoning that many of us will have to face head-on, such as retiring from a career that defines us, becoming a caregiver to a parent and contemplating our own mortality. The Home Stretch serves as a stark reminder that the peace we hope for as we age is often shoved aside to make room for another crisis, but it is also an inspiring tale woven with themes of forgiveness and survival.
Wayne M. Johnston taught English, Creative Writing and Publications at La Conner High School for 19 years. Prior to that, he worked on tugboats for 22 years, usually as chief engineer, towing freight barges between Canadian and West Coast American ports. In 2011, he won the Soundings Review First Publication Award for his essay, “Sailing,” and has published other essays locally. For his debut novel, North Fork, he drew from years of experience reading student journals to reproduce the way kids voice serious matters to a trusted adult. North Fork was released in 2016 as a YA novel. The story is told through the voices of three 17-year-olds as journal entries for their English class. Bill Smith, the protagonist in The Home Stretch, is their English teacher, and The Home Stretch (book two in a planned trilogy) is his back story.
Johnston lives with his wife, Sally, on Fidalgo Island in Washington State where he is working on another book.
The Home Stretch Publisher: Black Heron Press ISBN-10: 1936364344 ISBN-13: 978-1936364343 Available from Amazon.com, BN.com, Target.com and anywhere books are sold
Trish Stevens Stephanie Williams Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
