Advance Copy: Backstories on books by NASW members

For this column, NASW book editor Lynne Lamberg asks NASW authors to tell how they came up with the idea for their book, developed a proposal, found an agent and publisher, funded and conducted research, and put the book together. She also asks what they wish they had known before they began working on their book, what they might do differently the next time, and what tips they can offer aspiring authors. She then edits the A part of that Q&A to produce the author reports you see here.

NASW members: Will your book be published soon? Visit www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines to submit your report.

Publication of NASW members' reports in Advance Copy does not constitute NASW's endorsement of their books. NASW welcomes your comments and hopes this column stimulates productive discussions.

Rectangular photo of Terra Ziporyn’s office bookshelf showing works on the history and nature of sleep and circadian science, including three books by other NASW authors: Kenneth Miller, Lisa Lewis, and Lynne Peeples. Photo credit: Terra Ziporyn.

Terra Ziporyn (NASW Member) and Amy Wolfson—Educating the Exhausted: Adolescent Sleep and the Struggle for a Later School Start

Hundreds of US high schools have adopted healthy start times for adolescents—8:30 a.m. or later—but 1000s have yet to do so. In Educating the Exhausted: Adolescent Sleep and the Struggle for a Later School Start, Terra Ziporyn & Amy Wolfson report scientific evidence supporting later start times, their benefits for teens’ academic performance, & hurdles to raising public awareness & changing policy.

Rectangular photo of Rebecca E. Hirsch’s office bookshelf showing books on terrorism and its aftermath, examples of resilience, such as the restoration of the flag that flew at the World Trade Center on 9/11, and tree-planting projects. Photo credit: Rebecca E. Hirsch.

Rebecca E. Hirsch—150,000 Trees: Growing a Memorial for 9/11's Flight 93

Flight 93’s 9/11 crash further scarred Pennsylvania land blighted by decades of mining. To honor the 40 passengers and crew who gave their lives to prevent the plane’s crash into its likely Washington DC target, their families, area residents, and others focused on healing and growth. They planted a forest. In 150000 Trees: Growing a Memorial for 9/11’s Flight 93, Rebecca Hirsch tells their story.

Rectangular photo of Margie Patlak’s office bookshelf showing multiple works with the word “insects” in the title, and several on specific types of insects, including bees, crickets, ants, and moths. Photo credit: Margie Patlak.

Margie Patlak—Insect Safari: Exploring the Wondrous World of Everyday Bugs

Bees can count and ants can recognize themselves in mirrors. That degree of surprising detail abounds in Margie Patlak’s Insect Safari: Exploring the Wondrous World of Everyday Bugs. Patlak observed, photographed, and delved into the lives of hundreds of insects in her Maine garden and Philadelphia courtyard. She invites readers to join in. Her last chapter: “If you plant it, they will come.”

Rectangular photo of Helen Pearson’s office bookshelf showing works on such topics as evidence-based medicine, using evidence, evidence-based management, principles of medical statistics, testing treatments, users’ guides to the medical literature, and how to read a paper. Photo credit: Helen Pearson

Helen Pearson—Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works

In medicine, doctors make decisions based on rigorous studies that test whether treatments work. Evidence from research benefits other fields, e.g., schools, social policy, & conservation, Helen Pearson reports in Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works. “Evidence rarely provides certainty,” she notes. “But it can reduce uncertainty and improve decisions—and that can be life-changing.”

Rectangular photo of Lorraine Boissoneault’s office bookshelf showing works on disabilities, living with chronic illness, immunity, empathy, catastrophes, and works of poetry. Photo credit: Lorraine Boissoneault.

Lorraine Boissoneault—Body Weather: Notes on Chronic Illness in the Anthropocene

In Body Weather: Notes on Chronic Illness in the Anthropocene Lorraine Boissoneault likens variations in symptoms of her autoimmune illnesses to encounters with hot and cold weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and other climate extremes. "Illness has taught me determination, creativity, resilience, and the importance of community," she says, "knowledge we all need to foster a healthier planet."

Rectangular photo of Elizabeth Preston’s office bookshelf showing works on topics that include the evolution of parental care, Mother Nature, Father Nature, biology as ideology, social instincts, mating systems, and Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle. Photo credit: Elizabeth Preston.

Elizabeth Preston—The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care

“The tools for caring have been woven into our DNA,” Elizabeth Preston writes in The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care. From spiders to bats to whales, nature on land and sea is replete with examples. Humans and other animals’ shared biology and brain circuitry not only enable caring for our young, she says, but also living together in societies.

Rectangular photo of Roxanne Khamsis office bookshelf showing several books by and about Charles Darwin, along with books on genes, evolution, how environment shapes genes, cells, and mutations. Photo credit: Roxanne Khamsi.

Roxanne Khamsi—Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health

Contrary to common belief, we constantly experience genetic mutations. Some cause illnesses, such as cancer & heart disease. Others correct inherited disorders. In Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health Roxanne Khamsi reports successes, challenges, and risks of blocking or erasing some non-inherited mutations and tapping the healing potential of others.

Rectangular photo of Melody Glenn’s office bookshelf showing works addressing such topics as the politics of overdose, drug addicts as patients, addicts who survived, undoing drugs, addiction and women, and opium. Photo credit: Melody Glenn.

Melody Glenn—Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis

Methadone is a life-saving medication upon which users are dependent in the same way people with diabetes require insulin, Melody Glenn notes. In Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis, Glenn interweaves the biography of Marie Nyswander, co-founder of methadone maintenance treatment, with experiences from her own training as an addiction physician.

Rectangular photo of Alison Pearce Stevens office bookshelf showing a children’s book, If You Gave a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff that Stevens found inspiring, a book on beavers, Eager, by NASW author Ben Goldfarb, and a book on indigenous culture and plant ecology, Braided Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, along with a beaver skull showing the beaver’s distinctive orange teeth. Photo credit: Alison Pearce Stevens.

Alison Pearce Stevens—When Beavers Move In

When beavers become a nuisance in Washington State, chopping down trees and damming streams near homes, the Tulalip Tribes come to the rescue. They send biologists to transfer the beavers to ancestral tribal land in the Cascade Mountains. As Alison Pearce Stevens tells young readers in When Beavers Move In, the beavers thrive in their new homes and help restore trout and salmon populations.