Book Publicity Campaign Hopes To Help Our Warriors Returning From War

Autopsy of War: A personal History

Author: John A. Parrish,M.D.
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press

Autopsy of War Book Promotion

Autopsy of War
John A Parish

As a book publicity firm, we see lots of books cross our desks here at Newman Communications and some make a strong statement to those of us working them.  This book is no exception, and in fact, it prompted me to make a donation to the USO and tell my friends and colleagues about it. How does a man or woman return from war and resume a “normal” life. How do you deal with the horrors that you have seen during war and transform back to everyday life?  John Parrish’s book, Autopsy of War, shows that it is not an easy task for our returning warriors.  Even with a very successful medical career, Parrish couldn’t shake the PTSD that haunted his every move.  John Parrish came to us for a full book publicity campaign in the hopes that his experience  will reach those most in need of his message, the many soldiers that think they are alone with their anguish. Whether they have lost limbs or the damage is unseen to the eye, the struggle that our returning heroes face is gigantic.

Navy physician John Parrish served in Vietnam, an experience that seared him to the bone.  In the ensuing four decades, Parrish became recognized as one of the most innovative physicians in his field, yet he was tortured by PTSD.  Now, in AUTOPSY OF WAR: A Personal History, Parrish presents a profound and unflinching memoir of a physician’s wartime work in Vietnam and his forty-year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

John’s struggle was highlighted in The Boston Globe interview for their G Section and our radio publicity campaign has garnered many hits including:

  • Clearchannel Network & SiriusXM
  • Premiere Radio Network – national
  • Lifestyle Radio Network – national
    and local radio stations nationwide

When he first arrived in Vietnam, Parrish was a triage doctor, treating as many as thirty patients a day with wounds more destructive and life-altering than anything he had ever encountered.  He did his best but never felt like it was enough.  Dismembered limbs and other body parts flowed through his hands for hours on end, and these tragic triage scenes were not something his mind would ever  forget.  When not working on wounded servicemen, Parrish also tended to patients at a tuberculosis hospital in Hue, which was run by Vietnamese Catholic nuns.  He felt he was doing some good there, until the Tet Offensive brought the Viet Cong to Hue, where they executed the patients because they had been treated by an American doctor, and also killed the nuns for working with Parrish. Parrish would also spend time in the field, which was a particularly difficult time for him, since it was then, says Parrish, that “I felt a duty to find meaning in the war so I could convince myself the dead had not died in vain.”

Although happy to return home to the States, Parrish left Vietnam feeling guilty about leaving behind so much suffering.  He also returned home a different person. He found himself physically and emotionally unavailable to his wife and children, developed an obsession with war books and movies, and over the ensuing years, would suffer harrowing flashbacks.  Fighting the mental devastation of war, Parrish lived virtually homeless at times, visited veterans’ shelters and fled his family while reliving his Vietnam experience over and over again.  Despite the fact that he managed to establish a prominent medical career, few knew how his inner demons took over the rest of his life.  “I found myself increasingly restless, tortured, and lonely,” says Parrish, “never more so than at social events or professional meetings where my peers assumed I was in control.”  The present continued to mingle with the past as haunting images of Vietnam lingered in his mind, until the door to recovery finally opened after years of pain and struggle.

AUTOPSY OF WAR is a soul-searching and intensely personal journey through the world of war and recovery. An honest, moving, and intimate view of one man’s courageous battle to overcome PTSD, it is a highly relevant story today as soldiers return to the U.S. from abroad with challenges to face.  “I accept that there will always be war,” says Parrish, “but I need to believe more can be done to help its victims, specifically the warriors who have left the battlefield but not their personal war.  This book is witness to the power of time, acceptance, self-discovery, hard work, and love in belatedly diminishing one man’s psychic war.”

About the Author:

JOHN A PARRISH, M.D., is the CEO of the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT); the CEO of the Red Sox Foundation-Massachusetts General Hospital Home Base Program (an outreach program to help veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with PTSD and traumatic brain injury); and Distinguished Professor of Dermatology and former department head at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.  He is the author of 12, 20 & 5: A Doctor’s Year in Vietnam.

To learn more about Autopsy of War please visit:  http://autopsyofwar.com/

Book Publicity: The Misleading Mind, How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us to Solve Our Own Problems

The Misleading Mind

The Misleading Mind Cover

The Misleading Mind

Author: Karuna Cayton
Publisher: New World Library

For over 20 years Karuna Cayton has worked to coach and help people achieve a more balanced life.

In Misleading Mind: How We Create Our Own Problems and How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us Solve Them (New World Library), author and psychotherapist Karuna Cayton presents the essence of Buddhist teachings about the nature of mind so that anyone can use them.

“Much of Buddhist thought encourages us to embrace our problems like old friends. It even encourages us to seek out our problems as a way to train our minds and to break free from the control of our disturbing (but sometimes unseen) emotions,” writes Karuna. “Great practitioners like the Dalai Lama even claim to enjoy problems because, like our best friends, problems honestly and accurately reflect ourselves back to us. There is no clearer measure of our interior health than the nature of our problems.”

With a book publicity campaign outreaching to media in various beats and outlets, Karuna’s message hit home with inc.com.   “Empathy is greatly increased through mindfulness practice. As we know from the studies in emotional intelligence, empathy is one of the key leadership competencies in positive leadership. Research has demonstrated that the mood of the leader has an overwhelming effect on the mood of  the organization” states Cayton.

Newman’s  national radio book publicity has spread Karuna’s message around the country via:

  • The Progressive Radio Network,
  • Business Talk Radio, and more.

Business entrepreneurs and people in general are starting  to look at their problems in a new light.  Once we recognize the habitual ways our minds perceive and react, we see the way they mislead.  Cayton’s book contains exercises and real world examples that help the reader put into practice the way to a better life.

About the Author:

Karuna Cayton, psychotherapist and author of The Misleading Mind, spent twelve years working with Tibetan refugees in Nepal and studying with Buddhist masters. His Karuna Group practice applies Buddhist psychology to individual and organizational clients. He lives in Northern California.  Visit him online at www.thekarunagroup.com.

Book Promotion Serves Up Another helping of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series

Book Promotion for Chicken Soup for the Soul and Harvard Medical School–a deliciously healthy combination!

Newman Communications is excited to once again to provide book promotion and publicity services for the global best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series. To kick things off, Newman will launch a national book promotion radio tour for the four new Chicken Soup for the Soul titles.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Health, a new imprint of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC, publisher of the series and a world leader in life improvement, and Harvard Medical School, one of the world’s most respected medical institutions, has announced a first-of–its-kind collaboration for a new health and wellness book series for readers who want to get serious about their physical and mental wellbeing.

The first four books in the series will focus on a popular health topic, combining the inspiration and support of new stories written especially for these books with accessible, life-changing medical information from top Harvard Medical School doctors.

“Doctors often use stories as a way to motivate and educate their patients and this series will allow us to combine our latest medical advice with real stories from real people to help readers live healthier lives,” said Harvard Health Publications’ Chief Editor of Books Dr. Julie Silver. “Chicken Soup for the Soul is the perfect partner for us on this project because their stories are a wonderful source of hope, inspiration, and great advice—and they complement the useful medical information that we are providing in these books.”

The initial four titles in the series include:

  • Chicken Soup for the Soul: Boost Your Brain Power! by top neurologist Dr. Marie Pasinski, with Liz Neporent (May 2012 ; 978-1-935096-86-3)
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul: Say Goodbye to Back Pain!, by leading physical medicine expert and Harvard Health Publications Chief Editor of Books Dr. Julie Silver (May 2012; 978-1-935096-87-0)
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul: Say Goodbye to Stress by noted psychologist Dr. Jeff Brown, with Liz Neporent (May 2012; 978-1-935096-88-7)
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul: Say Hello to a Better Body! by respected internist Dr. Suzanne Koven (May 2012; 978-1-935096-89-4)

“Since 1993 Chicken Soup for the Soul has focused on improving lives by providing inspiration, wellness and hope around the world and this series is another extension of that mission,” said William J. Rouhana, Jr., Chairman & CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC. “We are excited to be working with Harvard Medical School and know that our readers will benefit from their cutting-edge health advice.”

Read the New York Times article on the benefits of storytelling on health www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/health/views/10chen.html?_r=1

Steven Kussin’s Book Publicity Tour Promotes Patient Advocacy

Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now

Author: Steven Z. Kussin, M.D.

Health columns in newspapers, wellness tips on television and countless books on the medical profession attest to the fact that a large and increasing number of people understand that health literacy is as important to living longer lives as is living a healthy life style. But while there are innumerable books that inform readers about medical conditions, few offer the more important lesson about medical decision-making. Many volumes warn the public about the dangers of the healthcare system but curiously few describe how they can be avoided using an insider’s perspective. It is for these reasons that Dr. Steven Kussin decided to turn to Newman Communications for a strong book publicity campaign for his new book, Doctor, Your Patient Will See you Now. Kussin’s passion for patient advocacy developed when he became the patient after a horrible accident.

Newman was able to present Kussin’s information to the public with a strong media book publicity tour that gave his book exposure via such publications as  Woman’s Day Magazine, The New York Times, Yahoo! Shine,
About.com, and many more.  Our radio publicity team took the track and provided tremendous book promotion opportunities by securing  Sirius XM Radio Doctor’s Network, Voice America Radio, and many local stations across the country.

Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.) offers knowledge and advice on what Kussin calls “patienthood” -the sum of talents, attitudes and knowledge that precede and rise above immediate concerns or ailments. It enables people to become partners rather than third parties in their own care. It allows them to be part of the equation rather than the passive result of others’ calculations.

Patients increasingly and correctly feel that they are on their own in a bewildering, impersonal, profit driven, perilous medical system.   Hospitals are foreign terrain. Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now is a guide book allowing readers to become skilled in healthcare’s customs, dialects and landscape.

About the Author:
Steven Z. Kussin, M.D. was raised in a medical family of independent physicians. From them he learned the lessons that enabled him to become his patients’ confidant and advocate. He attended Columbia University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he also later served as an assistant professor of clinical medicine.  Dr. Kussin has also opened a consultancy dedicated to medical advocacy in the service of his adopted city of Utica, New York and the central New York region.

The successful book publicity campaign for Dr. Steven Kussin and Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now helped patient’s learn ways to speak with their physicians and created visibility for this important message.