National Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Week is right around the corner, and it’s a great reminder to help raise awareness about previvors and their risk for cancer.

Check out our latest press release on the subject: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

I recently found out that Previvors won gold at this year’s Mom’s Choice Awards in the category of health, nutrition, fitness and safety.  I’m very thankful that the book was recognized.

While not all previvors are moms (or dads, for that matter), so many of them are. In fact, the five women featured in Previvors are all mothers, and they explain how being a parent affected their decisions when facing their cancer risk. Check out the chapter in the book entitled, “A Mother’s Legacy” to find out how.

Of course, I hope the book keeps helping all previvors first facing their risk. And thanks again to the Mom’s Choice Awards committee for honoring my book. I am very grateful.

I found out some very exciting news today: My book, Previvors, is the winner of  the 2011 International Book Award for the Best Health Book in the “Cancer” category. Here’s a link to the press release: www.internationalbookawards.com/2011pressrelease.html.

It’s an amazing feeling, being recognized for all of the work that went into this important book. The five women featured in Previvors and I are thrilled!

Let me be straight about this: I am a huge fan of the technology that’s available to us today (and I’m not just saying that because I’m married to a software developer.) I’d be lost without my DVR; running with anything heavier than an IPod would be unthinkable; and I honestly can’t imagine not being able to access my email anywhere, anytime. But after what happened to me this past Friday night, I actually started to question whether or not our countless forms of communication and means of capturing memories are doing us more harm than good.

For most of my life, I’ve been a film buff with a particular soft spot for kids’ movies. Even before we became parents, I’d drag my husband to the latest Disney (and later Pixar and Dreamworks) had to offer. And now that we have two excuses to go to these movies (a.k.a. our son and daughter), we’ve seen it all: From perennial classics like Cinderella and more recent hits like Up to less-than-stellar-but-my-kids-still-love-it movies like Gulliver’s Travels and Yogi Bear. (Seriously!?! They couldn’t come out with one good family movie this past Christmas?)

So I kind of consider myself a bit of a children’s film aficionado and with the Academy Awards just a few weeks away, I feel compelled to say the following: Not only should Toy Story 3 win Best Animated Feature Film, it should also win Best Picture of the Year…hands down.

OK, I’ll admit it:  I can’t walk out of the grocery store without grabbing the latest issue of People or Us Weekly. I watch hundreds of movies and entire seasons of TV shows a year (thank you Netflix!). And I haven’t missed a Golden Globe or Academy Awards’ ceremony since I was 9 years old.

But despite my Hollywood obsession, I’ve never been compelled to read any celebrity memoir, even though there are plenty dominating Amazon. That is, until now. For some reason, I just had to pick up a copy of Portia de Rossi’s memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain. For me, there was something about the Ally McBeal-eating disorder-journey to finding love with Ellen combination that I found irresistible. But while the book didn’t disappoint—actually I couldn’t put it down—it honestly scared the hell out of me.

We’ve been so blessed with the media attention that Previvors has received so far. And it’s still going strong. Check out the latest clip that aired on NBC-WPTV in South Florida. It was a Susan G. Komen for the Cure segment, written and produced by Judith Kolich.

Previvors featured on NBC

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to New York where Fox and Friends interviewed me about my October article in Glamour on breast cancer myths. Thanks to Alisyn Camerota for a great interview!

I wrote a piece for Glamour‘s October Issue about breast cancer myths which I discovered while researching content for Previvors.

After interviewing more than 70 leading breast cancer experts, it was clear that some ideas believed by many were simply untrue and needed to be clarified. Glamour also included a great sidebar about Previvors and preventative options.

Click here to download the article.

Kudos to CNN for exploring the subject of previvors and prophylactic mastectomies in an extended, in-depth segment.  Rori Clark and Suzanne Citere, two of the women featured in Previvors, share their stories with anchor Fredricka Whitfield.