MSI Press Blog

  Retired Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State, GEN Colin Powell , died today from the complications of Covid-19 and cancer. Both deadly. He was fully vaccinated; however, cancer made him vulnerable, especially the kind of cancer he had, multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that lowers immunity and thereby reduces the effectiveness of vaccines.* This death is particularly painful for my family though the Powell family has no idea of it. You see, with Carl Leaver, my husband, just dying of cancer, any cancer death is painful. However and moreover, years ago, when she was in high school, our daughter was a good friend of Anne-Marie Powell, the general's youngest daughter. All the kids gathered at the Powell house, always. Most of the kids were unaware of the stature of their friend's father because of his humility. He loved kids, and he welcomed them all -- as a father, not as a statesman or military officer. It spoke a lot about him. Likewise, when our

  What some people leave behind when they die can help so many others -- either making  medical care possible for them or making medical care better for them.  In the first category is a young mother (age 38) who died of ovarian cancer. Her name was Casey Ryan MacIntyre, and her dying wish was to wipe out the medical debts of other people. Through a memorial page on the  RIP Medica Debt page, she, with the help of her survivors, has already wiped out over 100 million dollars in debt of those who cannot afford medical care. (Donations are still being solicited -- until December, it appears -- if you would like to donate.) Newsweek tells the story HERE . In the second category are those who donate organs. For the most part, the process for doing that is easy to follow; hospitals have staff members who follow up on those who have indicated they wish to donate (e.g., on their driver licenses) or through those they leave behind and will often contact the latter whether or not there a wish

  Today, a Celebration of Life was held for MSI Press co-owner, typesetter, and cover designer par excellence, Carl Leaver, who died August 16, 2021.  Carl always said he was a rotten pumpkin, being born a day after Halloween, but November 1 is All Saints Day and the day after is All Souls Day -- pretty special timing. Carl's experience with cancer of unknown primary, which he killed him very rapidly (5 months), inspired Carl's Cancer Compendium and Cancer Diary. As for those saints and souls, check out Saints I Know and Dia de Muertos by that famous parish cat, Sula. Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI  is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand i

(photo from Wikipedia)   When traditional treatments are not working, cancer patients may want to participate in clinical trials. We did not have the time to arrange for something like that -- Carl was diagnosed very late and endured a very short time. When the cancer became quite out of hand after just three rounds of chemotherapy, the oncologist offered to "look for" a clinical trial, if we wanted one. Of course, that did not work out because Carl died just three weeks later.  However, the suggestion got us thinking. What would be involved in being in a clinical trial and in finding one? What would be the pros and cons? With subsequent research, which we would not have had time to do on our own, given the speed of Carl's demise, I learned some interesting things. On the positive side, clinical trials may provide access to treatments and drugs not yet in (wide) use and will almost certainly provide personalized attention. On the negative side, there is no guarantee that

  Earlier, Cancer Diary reported on the death of Kirstie Alley due to colon cancer. Now another well-known person has died from it: Pelé.  Carl Leaver , MSI Press typesetter and co-founder, died of Cancer of Unknown Primary ; however, his oncologist suspected that it started as colon cancer (though, typical of CUP, the colon was clean by the time CUP was diagnosed at advanced Stage 4). Carl had skipped his colonoscopy, not with a great deal of thought but just because he did not want to be bothered with it at the time. Advice to everyone: be bothered with it! Read about the symptoms of colon cancer and issues of colonoscopies HERE . There is also a good deal of information about colon cancer at Carl's Cancer Compendium (cancers are listed alphabetically). Click HERE for more Cancer Diary posts. Click HERE for more posts about colon cancer. Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer

Somehow, some way, it appears that animals know a lot more about death (and when it is coming) than we do.  When Murjan was approaching death , in fact, just the day before, he begged to go out on his leash for a walk. That cat always seemed to think he was actually a dog--and how he loved to go for walks! Saturday's walk was very different from his past walks, however. He kept exploring dark places, especially little cave-like areas, as if looking for a place to take a final rest. He never did that before. That spooked me a little because he seemed to be telling me that he was dying--and he was. He passed away within 24 hours of that walk. So, it should not have been surprising that when Carl was dying, he was surrounded by the cats who loved him. They spent all day and all night of that last 24 hours with him--under the footrest, on the footrest, and lying on him. They clearly knew. Check out MSI Press's books on cancer and related to cancer HERE . For more posts on Carl Leav

One of the fun things that a publisher (or at least, an acquisitions editor) gets to experience is meeting more than one member of a family -- as authors whose work we publish. In this series of presenting family authors, we take note of the Leaver writers, who have written books in various combinations and solo. Above pictured is Betty Lou Leaver and Shenan (CB) Leaver, who collaborated on Mommy Our House Guest , a fun book that has gained a number of afficionados and been serialized in a magazine.  Betty Lou, who has written dozens of books, including, for MSI Press, Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star and The Invisible Foreign Language Classroom (with Laura Dabbs) and Carl, who typeset and designed the covers of many MSI Press publications and edited Overcoming the Odds , collaborated on the book,  Intrepid.  who unfortunately passed away in 2021 from Cancer of Unknown Primary, Carl, unfortunately, passed away suddenly in 2021 from Cancer of Unknown Primar

    Today's fortune cookie is associated with Overcoming the Odds (Carl Leaver). Read more about the Carl Leaver and his books HERE .  Get a copy at MSI Prtess webstore . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

  Last Tuesday marked one year since Carl Leaver, co-founder of MSI Press LLC, passed from cancer. On that day, while we did a number of things to commemorate the significance of his life and the year since he left us, of some import, as I mentioned that days, was receiving a note from Science Care that they had planted another tree, a year later, in his honor in a national forest. That act brings to mind the ways that one's contributions do not end with death. They continue. Not only in the relatives and family traditions one leaves behind but in many other ways as well. Science Care, which accepts whole body donations, facilitates contribution in the areas of research and medical student training. Similarly, those who donate organs, improve the ongoing lives of people who might otherwise have died or lived impaired lives. So many financial donations are given in the names of those who pass on as a form of memorial. Those donations to very worthwhile endeavors likely would not o

  Two years ago today, Carl Leaver, typesetter, graphic designer, and co-founder of MSI Press LLC , passed away after five too-short months of cancer of unknown primary . We all want a legacy, no matter how humble, and Carl certainly has one. To wit, Dozens of MSI Press authors loved his book covers -- and, in a kind way, they reached out to him in his dying days to tell him so. He edited one book, Overcoming the Odds , and co-authored another, Intrepid . Books almost always outlast us. He was Dad to four children (or seven, depending on how you count the three who moved in with us as teenagers) and three grandchildren, two of whom lost both their grandfathers in 2021, and daddy to a couple dozen cats; his very special cat, Intrepid, who preceded him in death, is buried with him. His name is engraved on a brick, shown above by Br. James, at the St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista, reminding a number of people of him as they pass over his stone. His obituary is the second mo

  Excerpt from Overcoming the Odds , edited by Carl Leaver . Introduction  If you have picked up this book, you are likely somewhere waiting. Perhaps you are in a waiting room (aptly named). Perhaps you are in a hospital room somewhere. Perhaps you are at a library or even happily ensconced on a plane, train, bus—or in your living room, having picked up this book at a library sale or some other charitable event.  We are sorry that you are “stuck” somewhere. We hope that the stories in this little book will help you pass your time enjoyable. (And, if you are in a waiting room, please leave it where you found it so that others may be entertained after you.)   If you would like to read more stories from the books from which these excerpts have been taken, they are easily obtained. You can order them from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or any other online bookstore. Your local bookstore may also have it, but if not, the manager can certainly order it for you. Or, send us a note of

  excerpt from  Intrepid  by Carl Leaver and Betty Lou Leaver Preface All cats are special, but occasionally one is unique—so unique that you know that this one time, this one cat’s lifetime, is the only time you will encounter such a soul. That makes every day with the cat a delightfully special day, and it makes the death of such a cat a real tragedy. The memories linger, and they are no less sharp a year, or two years, or three years later than they were when they took place. Intrepid was just such a cat for us. So many things remind of us him nearly every day: replacing a light bulb—he would always climb the step ladder to help, putting up a Christmas tree—we never could when he was around because he would eat it or any plant, and the silence of waking up in the morning—he always woke us by pushing onto the floor any moveable item he found on the bureau (and, regardless of weight, he could usually find a way to move any item there). Missing Intrepid is part of our daily life now. F

  With the rumors floating about these days, especially inside Russia, about Putin's health and a visiting oncologist, thyroid cancer is in the news. While I have no inside information (thyroid cancer? Parkinson's, growing old? all in the minds of the rumor mongers?) and therefore will not comment on Putin's state of health, I will note that Carl's Cancer Compendium recently fleshed out a fair amount of information related to thyroid cancer (which just might be helpful to people other than Putin who may be exhibiting some symptoms of one of the more treatable, if caught early, cancers). From the site: Thyroid cancer Definition : A cancer that develops in the cells of thyroid gland, a butterfly-shaped gland located just below adam’s apple in the neck. It causes difficulty swallowing hoarseness, lump on the neck, and swollen lymph nodes in the neck.  Types  include Papillary  Thyroid Cancer Follicular  Thyroid Cancer Medullary  Thyroid Cancer Anaplastic  Thyroid Cancer Ca