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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
Pivot Your Perspective: 10 Reasons Why the Future is Bright
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It’s natural to invest a lot of time and energy into building a career and making money. After all, we need roofs over our heads and food on our tables. But what if we invested that same amount of effort into being truly, authentically happy?
“I thought that by having the house, the wife, the 2.5 kids, the vacations and the material things, I would be happy,” says Life Coach Michael Taylor. However, in spite of “having it all,” he still felt something was still missing.
Today, Taylor describes himself as an “irrepressible optimist,” and it’s all thanks to changing his perception of “success,” following his own gut and breaking free from the construct of societal expectations. He reveals his transformational journey along with insights drawn from science, spirituality and psychology in his new book, The Good News Is, The Future Is Brighter Than You Think!
Taylor challenges readers to look within their own minds and hearts to uncover the keys to authentic fulfilment. Along the way, he shares his
• 10 reasons to be optimistic about the future; • 4 pillars of a joy-filled life; and • 3 ways to know you are doing what you love.
The Good News Is dives deep into topics such as what it means to be human, divine intelligence and evolution, recognizing a higher power, creating meaningful connections, and so much more.
“If you’ve been looking for a resource that inspires you and motivates you and lights you up, this is the book for you!” Taylor adds.
Author Michael Taylor is uniquely positioned to spread hope and optimism. A high school dropout, he overcame a divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, depression and being homeless for two years on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur, motivational speaker, radio and TV host, and author of nine best-selling books. He has dedicated his life to empowering men and women to reach their full potential by transforming their lives from the inside out.
Taylor is President and CEO of Creation Publishing Group, a company that specializes in creating programs and products that empower men and women to live extraordinary lives, and Too Cool Club, a company that develops transformational education programs for youth. He has been featured in the Amazon.com bestselling book Motivational Speakers America and in USA Today magazine about the changing roles of manhood and masculinity in society. He has won numerous awards for his dynamic speaking style, and he is an Amazon.com bestselling author.
He is the host and producer of two TV Channels on the Roku Network, Don’t Believe The Hype and Shatter The Stereotypes, and hosts two podcasts of the same names available on most podcast platforms like Spotify and iTunes.
Most importantly, he has been blissfully married for 18 years to the woman of his dreams and he is a proud father of three grown children.
To learn more about Coach Michael Taylor, please visit www.coachmichaeltaylor.com.
The Good News Is, The Future Is Brighter Than You Think! Publisher: Creation Publishing Group ISBN-13: 978-0996948777 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Jennifer Smith Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
The Devil Thought He Had Me! Shares Remarkable Journey from Sinner to Servant of God
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At 18 years old, Wendell White lay trapped in the trunk of a car and assumed it would be his last ride. Battered from a beating during a drug deal gone-wrong, all he could think about was his 19-month-old son. White prayed. He asked God for forgiveness. He steeled himself to face the consequences of the sinful life he was living. And he wondered in angst, “How in the world did I get here?”
The Devil Thought He Had Me! is White’s raw, compelling story of resilience and survival, and a profound testimony to the power of God’s grace and mercy.
“After getting beaten and put into the trunk of a car, I knew then that I wanted to help the youth and adults all over the world to not make the same decisions that I had made,” he reflects.
The Devil Thought He Had Me! is the result of White’s genuine desire to use his own tragic story to connect with and help alter the trajectory of others who have veered off course. White candidly walks readers through his early days in the poverty-stricken Englewood community on Chicago’s South Side, where his mother sold drugs to make ends meet and often left White and his siblings home alone as she worked the streets. He would later follow in his mother’s footsteps until that fateful day when a drug buyer paged him to purchase two and a half ounces of crack cocaine. And everything went wrong.
The Devil Thought He Had Me! is White’s profound journey from drug-dealing teenage father to well-grounded husband, father, friend, mentor and servant of God. It’s White’s hope that by openly sharing his experiences, he can help others facing difficult life circumstances realize that there’s a pathway out.
“This book was written to be a light in a dark world,” White says. “If I can change the way that you think, I can change the way that you live.”
Author and motivational speaker Wendell White has had to overcome obstacles most cannot even imagine. His difficult upbringing on the South Side of Chicago taught him many bad habits but also instilled in him the values of loyalty, toughness, respect and a strong work ethic.
Today, he is a powerful speaker who draws from his life experiences to address audiences. He is motivated by faith, changing lives, inspiring others and legacy. The Devil Thought He Had Me! is his first book.
For more information, please visit www.wendellwhitespeaks.com, or follow the author on Facebook at Wendell White; on Instagram at wendellw_24; and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe1s8sYANHZdGtsXJnOCDpw/videos.
The Devil Thought He Had Me Publisher: KS Media and Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1736491201 Available from Amazon.com and www.wendellwhitespeaks.com
Trish Stevens Terri Johnson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Celebrate a Year in the Life of Social Media Celebrity Cat, Carrot
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Bailey was certainly no ordinary cat. The charismatic orange tabby’s humanlike antics made him a social media sensation, and he was adored by feline lovers around the world. When Bailey passed away at age 14, his family grieved their profound loss. They’d never find a cat quite like him—or would they?
Just as Bailey’s family—including Erin Merryn and her young girls Abby, Hannah and baby Claire—were mending their broken hearts, a tiny orange tabby kitten, born as a stray, found her way into their lives.
Diary of the Cat Named Carrot is the uplifting, instantly stress-reducing story of Carrot’s humble beginnings in a shelter and her eventual rise to internet stardom. Told from Carrot’s perspective, readers can follow along on her remarkable journey from the same shelter that had once housed Bailey to top Instagram celebrity feline. Much like Bailey had, Carrot loves spending time with her human family partaking in typically human pastimes: making mischief with her girl gang; joyriding in a pint-sized pink Barbie Jeep; doing arts and crafts; modeling a pink tutu and flowery headband; enjoying a spa day complete with fluffy robe and cucumber eye treatments; and celebrating Christmas, Easter and every holiday in between. It’s no wonder Carrot’s videos have gone viral—garnering attention from Ellen, the Dodo, Good Morning America, Access Hollywood, People and many other media outlets.
Diary of the Cat Named Carrot is packed with color photos that will leave readers purring with delight. The journal of this sweet, adorable kitty with personality to spare shows us that the human-animal bond runs more than fur deep. It is a love that will last a lifetime.
Erin Merryn is an author, activist, speaker, wife and mom to three girls—Abby, Hannah and Claire—and a fur baby named Carrot. She was named Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year in 2012 and a People magazine Hero Among Us for her tireless work promoting Erin’s Law nationwide with a mission to our keep children safe by educating them about personal body safety. She is the author of Bailey, No Ordinary Cat, Stolen Innocence, Living for Today and An Unimaginable Act.
Diary of the Cat Named Carrot Publisher: Health Communications, Inc. Release Date: March 30, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323901 ISBN-13: 978-0757323904 Available for pre-order on 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
Now, More Than Ever, Fighting for Our Children’s Needs Must Come First
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Children dream without boundaries; they aspire to become paleontologists, astronauts, doctors and teachers without considering socioeconomic barriers, discrimination, disease outbreaks, violence or any one of a host of other challenges impacting their likelihood of success. It’s up to us, as a society, to help each and every child fulfill his or her potential. In fact, the future of our nation depends on it.
NBC/MSNBC public health analyst, pediatrician and activist Dr. Irwin Redlener delivers a potent wake-up call that compellingly underscores the urgency with which we must work toward fulfilling the potential of all children in his inspirational call to action, The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America, which contains a new preface and afterword addressing COVID-19 and its impact on kids.
Inadequate education, barriers to health care and crushing poverty make it overwhelmingly difficult for many children to realize their dreams — and these issues have been dramatically compounded by the pandemic. Finding ways to alter these trajectories is serious, grown-up business, Dr. Redlener emphasizes, and it’s time for us to act.
“We need heartstrings to be tugged by the folks who work on the front lines … But we also need the hard-core, take-no-prisoners types who demand that those empowered to determine priorities and allocate resources understand and respond to the needs of children,” he writes.
In The Future of Us, Dr. Redlener draws upon his four decades of professional experiences to examine our nation’s health care safety nets and special programs that are designed to protect and nurture our most vulnerable kids, but that too often fail to do so.
The book follows Dr. Redlener’s long, colorful career, from his work as a pediatrician in the Arkansas delta, to treating child abuse in a Miami hospital, to helping children in the aftermaths of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He has served on the board of USA for Africa, cofounded the Children’s Health Fund with Paul Simon (and persuaded Joan Baez to play a benefit concert) and dined with Fidel Castro. He once sat across the table from Michael Jackson, and he has traveled with presidential candidates. But his most powerful source of motivation remains the children who face terrible adversities yet dream of becoming paleontologists, artists and marine biologists. Their stories are his springboard for discussing larger policy issues that hinder us from effectively eradicating childhood poverty and overcoming barriers to accessible health care. Persistent deprivation and the avoidable problems that accompany poverty ensnare millions of children and impact the health, prosperity and creativity of the adults they become. Dr. Redlener argues that we must drastically change our approach to meeting the needs of children ― for their sake and to ensure America’s resiliency and influence in an increasingly complex world.
It is Dr. Redlener’s hope that readers will emerge optimistic about our future, with a deeper understanding of how investing in children today will increase our chances of a successful tomorrow. Fighting for our nation’s children is far from a lost cause, and nothing could be more important.
Author Irwin Redlener, M.D., is a pediatrician and founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which works to understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In 2020, Dr. Redlener created the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia. He is a public health analyst for NBC and MSNBC, and recently partnered with Cher in CherCares, a new program that assists communities struggling with COVID-19.
Dr. Redlener is also President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Children’s Health Fund, a philanthropic initiative that he created with singer/songwriter Paul Simon and Karen Redlener to develop health care programs in 25 of the nation’s most medically underserved urban and rural communities. He currently serves as a special advisor on emergency preparedness to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and regularly communicates with leadership in U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, as well as Homeland Security.
He is also the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now. For more information, please visit www.irwinredlener.org.
The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN-10: 0231177577 ISBN-13: 978-0231177573 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Chris Johnston Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Providence Heights Brings Renewed Hope to Seattle’s At-Risk Women
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Seattle spends more than $1 billion per year on fragmented programs to support its homeless, according to Puget Sound Business Journal. This figure is staggering, yet offers no guarantees that these vital services will be available from one year to the next. Too much hinges on donations and government programs — dollars that hang in the balance relative to the local economy. Women and children are especially vulnerable to the dangers of living on the streets or in unsafe environments, and one woman who has survived unthinkable adversity has founded an organization unlike most others.
In 2019, Christine Soule launched Providence Heights, a Christian-based nonprofit designed to empower Seattle’s women in need through housing, employment opportunities and personal development programs. The organization’s business model includes multiple sources of revenue to generate a sustainable income, something Soule likes to call Capitalism for the Poor. Additionally, “Our unique retail space integration will secure revenue as well as provide apprenticeship, jobs and entrepreneurial skills,” Soule explains.
The initial Phase I launch will provide housing and resilient growth programs for approximately 100 women at risk of going under who simply need an opportunity to regroup and equip themselves to not just survive but to thrive. Also for those who have come out of a program such as the Union Gospel Mission and are fully prepared to commit to changing the trajectory of their lives.
Phase II aims to more than double the capacity and provide housing for more than 200 women, including those with children. Once the revenue stream is firmly established in this phase, Providence Heights will enter Phase III — the final phase — when the organization will replicate this model from city to city. They hope to also empower similar organizations to use its successful blueprint to help those they serve.
Providence Heights Founder and Chief Executive Officer Christine Soule is a lover of people and passionate about leading them toward a restored and dignified life. From her personal experience, she has great compassion for homeless and abused women. She co-founded The Purpose and is a philanthropist, author and inventor. Her recently released book, Broken and Beautiful, chronicles her remarkable journey from trauma to triumph. Christine is also a mother of five and married to Mitch, the love of her life.
Post-Traumatic Thriving Explores Powerful Ways to Heal After Heartbreak
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Just when everything seems to be going right — our jobs are stable, our children are succeeding, and the stars seem to be aligning in our favor — the floor drops out. Stunned and unable to make the simplest decisions, we shut down completely. In that moment, it’s nearly impossible to imagine things ever being “normal” again. What just happened?
“It is trauma, in all of its forms. It slaps us right in the face, and hard,” says world-renown expert on disasters and trauma Dr. Randall Bell. “When trauma hits, the most critical decision we make is to choose whether to be a victim, aggressor, survivor or thriver.”
In his new book, Post-Traumatic Thriving: The Art, Science, & Stories of Resilience, Dr. Bell interweaves science and academic research with stories of people who have not just survived, but have used their trauma as their fuel to thrive. Dr. Bell sits down with survivors of the Holocaust; murder-victim’s families; crime victims; suicide survivors; and those who’ve experienced homelessness, disasters, addictions, depression, death, divorce, disabilities, defeats and disease to explore the rare mindset of the post-traumatic thriver.
Through this unprecedented research, Dr. Bell shares with readers stories of remarkable resilience, including the following:
• A deaf man with a glass eye invented the electric guitar and became a household name, remarkably wealthy and most importantly, happy. • A convicted murderer took responsibility for the damage he caused, graduated with honors from college, became a minister and turned around the hearts of the most hardened criminals. • A girl born with cerebral palsy landed the world’s first starring role on national television and spoke at the White House three times. • A woman hid in a basement for years and lost her entire family in the Holocaust. She eventually found true love and paints stunning artwork. • The sister of a murder victim helped millions of women in toxic domestic relationships. • A woman’s car crash resulted in an addiction to prescription drugs, a divorce, a loss of her children and a cot in a homeless shelter. She has rebuilt it all back and more. • A man set to go to the Olympics had his hopes dashed by Jimmy Carter and went on to build a worldwide business empire.
Ultimately, Dr. Bell documents the science of happiness, as well as the individual styles and common thread that all post-traumatic thrivers have to emerge with a fulfilling life. When trauma hits, your most significant decision will be to dive, survive or thrive. If you choose to thrive, this book is for you.
As an economist, Dr. Randall Bell has consulted on more disasters on earth than anyone in history and is widely considered the world’s top authority in the field of post-traumatic thriving. His clients include the Federal Government, State Governments, International Tribunals, major corporations and homeowners. Dr. Bell believes that “the problem is not the problem — the problem is how we react to the problem.”
Often called the “Master of Disaster,” Dr. Bell is squarely focused on authentic recovery and resilience. His research has been profiled on major television shows and featured in numerous magazines and the international media. More information can be found at www.posttraumaticthriving.com.
Post-Traumatic Thriving: The Art, Science, & Stories of Resilience Publisher: Core IQ Press Release Date: January 1, 2021 ISBN 978-0-9967931-7-9 Available from Amazon.com and all bookstores
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
