MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Creative Aging (Vassiliadis & Romer) - Creative Aging’s Impact on Health Recently, one of my dance students, Sandra O’Brien, age 75, pulled me aside after class. She told me, "You know, Cheryl, a few years ago I didn't like getting older because it meant there would be so many things that I wouldn't be able to do, but since I've started these dance classes, I don't feel that way anymore. I found something I like and feel good doing no matter how old I am.”   When Sandra went in for her annual checkup, the doctor was excited by all the positive changes in her health profile. She’d lost weight, her blood pressure was lower, her balance had improved substantially and most of all, Sandra’s outlook on life had shifted. She no longer dreaded the aging process and all the negative connotations that it had presented.   Sandra has learned to embrace the years ahead and rediscover the things that made her feel good about herself years ago. She pushed me t

It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic addresses how authors can sell their books. After all, it makes no sense to put all the effort into writing a book, self-publishing it or getting it published, and then having it sit on a shelf for ever, with no opportunity for it to share its message. Unfortunately, many, if not most new authors, in our experience, never think beyond the day their book appears in print (or, in some cases, beyond their first month of book launch activities). They assume that, of course, they did the work of writing the book, and the publisher will do the work of marketing the book. It does not work that way, and marketing

  ROMAN PILGRIMAGE   I had only one wish on my bucket list—to visit Rome. I lived there as a student nearly fifty years ago, and had never been back. Now was the time. I was excited by the prospect of visiting my old haunts. I wondered what I would discover, not so much about the eternal city, but about myself. How have I changed in those fifty years? The real journey, I realized, was inward. For the most part, I would be alone touring the city for two weeks. I expected the time to be a personal retreat, a spiritual pilgrimage. What it turned out to be was beyond my expectations.   I stayed at an airbnb near the Coliseum, in the center of the old city. Coincidentally, it was around the corner from the Hotel Forum where my mother stayed when visiting. The hotel became my landmark. Everything of interest to me was within walking distance. I had no agenda for each day and did not follow a guidebook. A fellow classmate had given me some suggestions of typical tourist sites, which I used as

The following guest post by Dr. Dennis Ortman, psychologist, former priest, and MSI Press author, will form the basis of a forthcoming book on coping with pandemic conditions, called The Pandemic and Hope . POST-PANDEMIC STR ESS DISORDER  By Dennis Ortman, Ph.D.     I have a fantasy. President Trump will eventually announce victory over the Coronavirus. He will declare, “We have won the war. We have shown our greatness as a nation in working together to defeat this invisible enemy.” He will then express gratitude to all the healthcare workers, who risked their lives, those who supported all the essential services, and the entire nation. He will also report remarkable progress on a vaccine and treatment. American ingenuity again triumphs. Hopefully, this day will come sooner than later.  However, while the war may be won on one front, another remains, the inner battle against fear. We cannot rest on our laurels. Many have aptly compared this epidemic