The Home Stretch: Uplifting Coming of Age Story Explores Complex Themes of Mortality and Forgiveness
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The diagnosis of leukemia at age 43 laid bare a brief flirtation with escape for Bill Smith. After all, he had battled depression and suicidal thoughts from a young age; mortality was really nothing new for him to grapple with. To put it bluntly, for Bill Smith, the end had always been in view. But that life-defining moment — that brief descent into darkness — triggered a profound fight for survival.
The Home Stretch, from award-winning author Wayne M. Johnston, features everyman Bill Smith (loosely based on Johnston himself), who, throughout his life, is confronted with extraordinary circumstances. His is a coming of age story in which the peace that allegedly comes with maturity is often shunted aside to make room for yet another crisis. It is also an uplifting story in its candid, reality-based portrait of a man struggling to find personal integrity through challenging conditions.
From an early age, Bill grapples with depression. Raised in a religious cult, he cannot reconcile his own experience with the worldview of his parents, and although he’s bound to them by love and obligation, he rejects their beliefs. His father’s palpable disappointment in Bill leads him to contemplate suicide and to provoke his father into a confrontation with a surprising outcome that would redefine their relationship and alter the course of both of their lives.
Given to a physical, adventurous life, Bill becomes the chief engineer on a seagoing tugboat, and his tales of weathering gale-force winds and violent storms at sea provide metaphorical undercurrents for his 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.
The Home Stretch is a poignant, ultimately inspiring coming of age story that weaves themes of mortality and forgiveness through life-defining moments of reckoning that many adults have to face head-on and learn to overcome.
Wayne M. Johnston taught English, Creative Writing and Publications at La Conner High School for 19 years. Prior to that, for 22 years he worked on tugboats, 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. The Home Stretch is book two in a planned trilogy. 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 is his back story.
Johnston lives with his wife, Sally, on Fidalgo Island in Washington State where he is working on another book length project. Connect with the author on Facebook (
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 Vicky Rockwell Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
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
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If you’ve always wanted to try journaling but didn’t know how to get started, take heart. With the right tools, it can be easy, enjoyable, and most importantly, it can be life changing.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women contains inspirational writing prompts, thought-provoking exercises and quotes worth contemplating to encourage you to open your mind, manifest your goals and reflect on your dreams.
Written by award-winning author and licensed psychotherapist Michaela Renee Johnson, Empowered is designed to help you connect with your deeper self and visualize your intentions through creative exercises. The author can address topics, such as, ‘how to find hope and create dreams during uncertain times,’ and ‘how to focus on things you want to create in your life while dealing with change,’ among others.
Organized around the themes of dream, believe and achieve, Empowered includes exercises that ask you to explore your feelings and thoughts through writing, while others encourage you to go beyond the book to meditate, listen to music or enjoy nature―and return to contemplate your experiences. There’s no right or wrong way to use this motivational journal; the important thing is to begin.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women provides:
Creative freedom―Explore out-of-the-box ideas like drawing and coloring, creating a vision board, or crafting a reflective poem.
Your own space―The colorful, beautifully illustrated modern layout gives you abundant room to express yourself directly in the pages of this motivational journal.
Inspiring words―Cultivate a positive mindset with quotes from influential women like Alice Walker, Amelia Earhart and Michelle Obama.
You can unlock your true potential and create positive changes in your life―and journaling is a powerful way to start.
Michaela Renee Johnson is an award-winning author, licensed psychotherapist and host of the top iTunes podcast, Be You Find Happy, which encourages people to speak their truth with grace and live a courageous life of authenticity. Her initiative, Be You Find Happy, holds workshops and conversations on finding happiness in spite of life’s setbacks and has landed her speaking opportunities across the nation. She is an avid adventurer, having traveled to more than 20 countries, and self-proclaimed “Boho Mom” who loves all things metaphysical as well as poetic quotes. She is a Sagittarius and an ocean-lover who lives in Northern California with her husband and young son, and a homestead full of animals. In her spare time, she’s often hiking, doing yoga, gardening, golfing or reading.
Empowered: A Motivational Journal for Women Publisher: Callisto Media Release Date: June 9, 2020 ISBN-10: 1647390524 ISBN-13: 978-1647390525 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Claire Downing Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
The Warrior’s Meditation Shares Best-Kept Secret In Stress Relief And Self-Improvement
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The Warrior’s Meditation by Richard L. Haight, the award-winning author of The Unbound Soul, makes transformative meditation accessible to the masses, with short, daily sessions that don’t require periods of isolation.
“The Warrior’s Meditation is unlike any other meditation. This method is flexible in application, which allows it to blend with whatever your day has in store,” Haight says.
Perfect for people of all backgrounds and skill levels, The Warrior’s Meditation teaches an instinctive, non-religious form of Samurai meditation that is both practical and extremely effective.
Through daily meditation, practitioners can experience the following cognitive and physical benefits, among many others:
Improved immune function; decreased cellular inflammation and pain.
Increased positive emotions; less anxiety, depression and stress.
Increased emotional intelligence and compassion; reduced feelings of insecurity.
Increased gray matter in areas related to paying attention, positive emotions, emotional reg-ulation and self-control.
Improved memory, creativity and abstract thinking.
Life is busy, and few people have time to spend hours a day in meditation. With The Warrior’s Meditation, readers can experience profound clarity and awareness wherever they are and eventually embody meditation as a way of being.
Author Richard L. Haight is a master-level instructor of martial, meditation and healing arts. He began formal martial arts training at age 12 and moved to Japan at the age of 24 to advance his training with masters of the sword, staff and aiki-jujutsu.
During his 15 years in Japan, Haight was awarded masters licenses in four samurai arts as well as a traditional healing art called sotai-ho. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in the traditional Japanese martial arts.
Through his books, his meditation and martial arts seminars, Haight is helping to ignite a worldwide movement for personal transformation that is free of all constraints and open to anyone of any level. He now lives and teaches in southern Oregon.
The Warrior’s Meditation: The Best-Kept Secret in Self-Improvement, Cognitive Enhancement, and Stress Relief, Taught by a Master of Four Samurai Arts Publisher: Shinkaikan Body, Mind, Spirit LLC ISBN-10: 0999210092 ISBN-13: 978-0999210093 Paperback available at all online bookstores.
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
