MSI Press Blog

Dave Brown Dave Brown is the author of five previous books.  He lives in Downingtown, Pennsylvania with his wife and three children. He co-authored  One Simple Text…The Liz Marks Story  with Betty Shaw. The book is a poignant tale of the drama that Liz and her family suffered as a result of her nearly dying from an accident that resulted from texting while driving. Email author

Saturday, April 7, 2012 The morning before Easter I stood in front of the kitchen window in my pajamas with a cup of hot coffee in my hand, gazing at the cloudless sky and watching the pesky squirrels in the backyard eat all of the birdseed out of the birdfeeder. No matter how many times I chased them off, they came back. I loved watching the birds so I put up with the thieves. Such a perfect day—except for one thing: my daughter Elizabeth still wasn’t home. She had spent the night at a friend’s house, and I had expected her to return before now. She knew the rules—she had to check in with us in person the next morning after staying the night away from home—but she hated to follow them. A typical teenager, rebellious and stubborn, she thought her parents didn’t understand her, that we had no idea what it was like to be a teenager. Lord knows, I was well aware of the trouble a teenager could get into by spending the night away from home, not only from her older half-brother

  Excerpt from One Simple Text: The Liz Marks Story (Shaw & Brown) GETTING TO ELIZABETH I careened around Elizabeth’s room, looking for something, anything, that felt like her that I could hold onto. Then, I saw it: her pillow—her favorite, the one she slept on every night, the one with the pizza stains, blotches of makeup, and the fruity scent of her perfume. I clutched that pillow to my chest for the whole ride to Shock Trauma. The drive had taken more than an hour, a span that people tend to think must have felt like an eternity. But it didn’t. I wanted that drive to last forever. I feared that once we arrived at Shock Trauma, they would tell us Elizabeth was dead. As long as the car rolled along the road, Elizabeth was alive. Paramedics had flown Elizabeth in a medevac helicopter from a cleared crop field a half-mile from the accident scene to the roof of the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, part of the University of Maryland Medical Center—Shock Trauma for short. There, s

excerpt from Teaching and Learning to Near Native Levels of Language Learning III (Dubinsky and Butler)  Introduction of Keynote Speaker, HRH Prince Firas bin Raad of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, by Betty Lou Leaver, Executive Director, CDLC               Because I have been a resident of the extraordinary Kingdom of Jordan since January 2004, it is a singular pleasure and honor to introduce our very special keynote speaker, His Royal Highness Prince Firas bin Raad of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. His biography and international and cross-cultural experiences coincide very much with the international orientation of our audience today. Let me give you a few examples:   (1) He was born in Amman, Jordan, attended boarding school in New Hampshire, earned a BA in economics and public health in 1991 from John Hopkins University, an MA in international studies in 1993 from the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins, and a Master of Public Health in 1997 fr

photo: https://calstar.org/contact-us/              A nurse named Ally carried a big, white binder into Elizabeth’s room. It contained, according to Ally, all the information I would need to help me understand what to expect in the coming days and weeks. As Ally guided me through the binder, the truth that Elizabeth was not yet out of the woods—not even close—began to sink in. My heart pounded in my throat, and tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. “Just take it hour by hour,” Ally told me, just as the TRU nurse had.   I learned about the two critical periods in the early recovery for a person with a brain injury. The initial critical period when injuries may be so bad that they cause death, even with the best care, occurs the first day or two after the injury. Those who survive this period face another critical period a few days later, lasting for approximately two more weeks during which time the brain may swell and complications occur at any time. Elizabeth had now entered i