MSI Press Blog

Joanna Charnas, author of Living Well with Chronic Illness and 100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illbess, talks in this post about the common everyday things that can become really serious issues for those who are ill. Read her article in yoursnews here . Read more articles from Joanna here , along with her an interview with her.

 In honor of Caturday, we are sharing a picture of Joanna Charnas's foster failure. It probably is difficult to give up a foster cat -- one gets attached. To get a better understanding about Joanna, read her book, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance .  A diverting and informative story of searching for love in mid-life by a divorced social worker, who intertwines entertaining stories of successful love interests with well-known movies containing similar plots and themes. Written as diary entries covering a 15-year period, the author shares openly, in detail, and with insights her experiences with dating, friendships, affairs, and relationships. Written candidly with a light hand and turns of phrase that reflect her personality and make the book hard to put down. Joanna has also written award-winning non-fiction about coping with chronic illness. Check out: Managing chronic illness demands constant mindfulness and management. It’s a process that constantly evolves over a lifetime

  photo by Splash Magazine Library Journal calls it, “The perfect pandemic read for those, “thrown into the dating world and trying to mesh real life with that depicted in the movies.” Read more of the review by Splash Magazine on the holiday suggestion list HERE . Also, read the interview with the author in Splash Magazine: "A Movie Lover's Search for Romance" Review--A Captivating Read HERE . Read more posts by and about Joanna Charnas and her books HERE . 

For struggling writers (struggling to write, struggling to get published, struggling to sell books), this article, published last year after Joanna Charnas's second book came out, is a gem. (link: https://sanfranciscobookreview.com/how-my-dream-came-true-but-then-i-lost-my-mind-the-psychodynamics-of-being-a-new-author/) sanfranciscobookreview.com/how-my-dream-c…

  Has the upcoming Valentine's Day got you thinking about love? If so, here are some popular MSI Press books that you will enjoy. 57 Steps to Paradise (Patricia Lorenz) half-price sale get the ebook Looking for love in your 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and yes, even your 80's or 90's? 57 STEPS TO PARADISE will help you navigate dating in midlife and beyond. Lorenz unzips her soul and exposes her foibles during 50 years of men weaving their way in and out of her life, providing a heap of wit and wisdom to help you make life-changing decisions about love and, perhaps, a life partner. Read more posts about Patricia Lorenz and her book HERE . Read more books about mid-life HERE . Read more books about aging HERE . A Movie Lover's Search for Romance (Joanna Charnas) get the book (paperback, hard cover, e-book) A diverting and informative story of searching for love in mid-life by a divorced social worker, who intertwines entertaining stories of successful love inte

  We just received a copy of an Instagram review of Joanna Charnas's book, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance: It’s been so nice to get my mind off things these past few days and just indulge in a lighthearted story — filled with humor, plot twists, and colorful characters ! In the end the need for love is universal and I enjoyed reading about Joanna’s own quest for love. For more information about this book, where to purchase it, and where to read more reviews, click HERE . For more posts about Joanna and her books, click HERE .   

Making Artists: The National Theater Institute’s Influence on a Writer   If art moves us, the impact never departs. It strikes an emotional chord that resonates into the recesses of our psyche forever. That’s how fourteen weeks at the National Theater Institute (NTI) affected me.   In the fall of 1980, I was twenty years old, badly dressed, clumsy, and thirty pounds overweight. I took what I was certain would be a permanent leave of absence from my college, with little optimism about my future or myself. I felt lost. I had trained as a stage manager in high school and college, and I loved theater, but enrolling in The National Theater Institute, more than anything else, was a means to buy time while I struggled to figure out what to do with the next phase of my life.     The National Theater Institute, located at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, offered a comprehensive, semester long theater training program for college-age students. Our instructors we

  From Joanna Charnas, the author of A Movie Lover's Search for Romance   I found everything about Henry Cooper completely charming. Erudite and cultured, he’d written about the space program for the New Yorker Magazine. I’d encountered my father’s old high school friend when I was forty-four, during a visit to New York City for a family event, when Dad was staying with him. A few months after the trip, I confessed my thing for Henry to Dad, who was surprisingly supportive. To amuse myself, I later wrote a short essay about my crush, and read it to Dad. His response: “You should get that published.” Dad was the most intellectual person I’ve ever met. Hyper educated at Andover, Harvard, and Harvard Law, he read books on architectural theory and the collected letters of Mozart for fun. Based on my father’s enthusiasm, and trusting his judgement, I continued to write about dating and all things romantic post-divorce. These essays turned into A Movie’s Lover’s Search for Romance. Of th

  We congratulation our author, Joanna Charnas, for the selection of her excellently written book and compelling story, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance, as a Book Excellence Award Finalist. For more posts on Joanna and her book(s) click HERE .

  Today's back story is about the book, Living Well with Chronic Illness by Joanna Charnas From the author: In the mid to late 1990s, I was particularly sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an illness I’d lived with since I was nineteen. During these years, I had several run-ins with large bureaucracies, including the Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles and Harvard Community Health Plan, the largest HMO in the state. After I’d successfully obtained the services I needed, I’d tell my father about these confrontations, carefully leaving the distress they’d caused me out of the narrative. My father repeatedly responded, “You ought to write about that.” I was a Social Worker for a large AIDS service organization at the time, and my reply was always, “My experiences aren’t unique. My clients often encounter these same problems.” We had some version of this conversation for a couple of years. At the same time, I had an otherworldly feeling I should be writing something. I’d been p

Joanna J. Charnas is a social worker with over thirty years of experience as a licensed mental health provider. She received her master’s degree from Boston University School of Social Work in 1988 and has earned the highest level of social work licensure in California (Licensed Clinical Social Worker, 2001.) She has worked in numerous service sectors, all of which placed fragile people in her care and enhanced her clinical acumen and skills. Since 1995, she has worked specifically with people with mental and physical illnesses. She published on HuffPost Blog for two and a half years, and her writing has appeared in PopSugar, The San Francisco Review of Books, and SteadyHealth. More about her writing can be found at  www.joannacharnas.com Her first book ,   Living Well with Chronic Illness ,  was released August 25, 2015. Her second book,  1 00 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness , was released in April 2018. Her third book, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance

  Today's daily excerpt comes from 100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness by Joanna Charnas.  11.  A SLICE OF CANINE HEAVEN             When Emme died, I struggled to find the right words of condolence for her owner, my colleague Matt. I finally told him that rarely are my expectations of great things completely fulfilled, but my day with Emme exceeded my hopes and was a joy. Emme was a 170-pound Great Dane who spent one hot summer day, per Matt, “babysitting” me when I was homebound with a sinus infection. I’d been sick in June with a similar illness, and when I returned to work, Matt offered to bring Emme to my home the next time I felt ill. He knew I loved Great Danes but couldn’t own one because of my chronic illness. So, during my second week-long bout that summer with sinus issues, I gave Matt a call. At six-thirty the next day, he arrived with Emme and the largest dog bed I’d ever seen.  After an hour of anxiously checking my front door, Emme settled in. She was th

Part of a series on the coronavirus pandemic written by MSI Press authors to share expertise, help, and hope,  Tips, Techniques, and Anecdotes to Help during a Pandemic  focuses on physical and mental well being during any time of crisis. Topics include meditation and mindfulness; positivity; managing setbacks; laughing at oneself; overcoming chal lenges; friends, family, and others; managing daily tasks; adaptive solutions; tricks and tools; and miscellaneous musings. Joanna is also author of: Living Well with Chronic Illness 100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness and A Movie Lover's Search for Romance . More posts about and by Joanna Charnas may be found HERE .