Meet the Author: More Chats Scheduled!

Coming on the heels of a terrific "Meet the Author" program with James S. Hirsch, author of "Cheating Destiny: Living With Diabetes, America's Biggest Epidemic", be sure to join us and meet several other esteemed authors with diabetes!

Chat with Deb Butterfield

Join us next Thursday (May 10, 2007) at 9:00 PM EST in the the DiabetesTalkFest.com chatroom and meet Deb Butterfield, author of the book "Showdown with Diabetes". For many people with diabetes, Deb Butterfield needs no introduction. Deb founded the Insulin-Free World Foundation in 1996, and until she adopted her second daughter in 2005, Deb operated the DiabetesPortal family of websites, a group of diabetes-centric websites that was an interactive online diabetes community. The sites included a popular chatroom called DiabetesStation, a quarterly publication called Insulin-Free TIMES and a news page called DiabetesDailyNews just to name a few. Collectively, the websites at DiabetesPortal.com received approximately 3.5 million hits and 350,000 impressions per month.

Deb was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1970 at the age of 10. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Colorado, Deb worked for an executive search firm in New York City before starting her own consulting practice specializing in recruiting and strategic planning for financial brokerage firms in New York and London. But from 1992 to 1994, Deb's career was interrupted by the secondary complications of diabetes and a failed kidney and pancreas transplant. She had a successful kidney and pancreas transplant in 1994.

Deb was the 1998 recipient of the prestigious Scripps Whittier Confidence Award given annually to a person deemed to have made a significant contribution to improving the quality of life for people with diabetes. In June 2001, Deb was the first non-surgeon/researcher to be elected to the council of the International Pancreas and Islet Transplantation Association. In October 2001, she was likewise elected to the council of the Cell Transplant Society.

Deb currently lives in the St. Louis area with her husband Tom and her two daughters. The date for this program is Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 9:00 PM EST.

Chat with Amy Tenderich

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 9:00 PM EST, meet Amy Tenderich, co-author of "Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes", and fellow diabetes blogger at diabetesmine.com.

Amy Tenderich is a freelance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a BA in Journalism from California State Long Beach and an MA in Communication Studies from University of California Santa Barbara. She began her career as a journalist, and has experience in magazine editing, marketing and public relations. Following two stints overseas and 13 years of communications work in the Silicon Valley technology industry, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in May 2003, and subsequently launched DiabetesMine.com, "a gold mine of straight talk and encouragement for people living with diabetes" - for which she recently received the LillyforLife Achievement Award™ for diabetes journalism.

As a relatively new type 1 diabetic and mother of three, Tenderich takes an unusual "cynically optimistic" view of the trials of living with diabetes. She speaks creatively and from the heart - to people with diabetes and their family, friends, and community - on topics ranging from inside looks at diabetes research and breaking news to daily life with diabetes to uncovering the diabetics’ deepest hopes and fears. And she can make you chuckle.

Tenderich and DiabetesMine.com have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the UK Guardian, TechCrunch, NPR's Future Tense, and a number of other influential blogs and publications. DiabetesMine.com itself was named one of three most influential blogs in healthcare at the 2006 Healthcare Blogging Summit.

Tenderich recently collaborated with Dr. Richard Jackson, a leading physician from Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston to co-author the new book, "Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes" - hailed as the first-ever straightforward guidebook providing a clear strategy for living well with diabetes and avoiding the long-term health damage it can cause.

Chat with Lisa Roney

Last, but certainly not least, is a chat with an author who broke new ground when her autobiography "Sweet Invisible Body: Reflections on a Life With Diabetes" was first published in August 1999. I'm speaking of none other than Lisa Roney. As some D-Bloggers may recall, Kerri interviewed Lisa back in February. I've had the pleasure of exchanging periodic e-mails with Lisa since 2005.

Lisa, who grew up in Tennessee, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1972 at age 11. Since then, diabetes has turned her life into an ongoing balancing act. She began her book after deciding that society had denied diabetes its stature as a serious illness. As she told Kerri in February, "There were books written by the deaf, the blind, those with cancer ... but nothing about diabetes."

Lisa told The New York Times reporter "As I tried to learn to understand myself, it was natural for me to look to books and there was not much out there. All kinds of other ailments have figured in literature and cultural studies, But for some reason, diabetes was not included."

"Sweet Invisible Body" was the one of the first books published during a relatively short timeframe earlier this decade regarding life with diabetes. (Deb Butterfield's "Showdown with Diabetes" was also among the books reviewed by The New York Times back in 2000, as was Andie Dominick's "Needles: A Memoir of Growing Up With Diabetes".) Since August 2003, Lisa Roney has been a professor who is on a tenure track at the University of Central Florida.

Lisa has told me that since her book was first published, she has since become a convert to the pump. She adds that her pump has made life much more "normal". Although she says "It's still a pain, and there are always issues with MiniMed, but I do love the pump. I sometimes even lose track of time now, and though that's not something that most people would think of as an accomplishment, I do!"

The date for the program with Lisa Roney is still being finalized, but I will be sure to update everyone as soon as I've confirmed dates and times. Please consider this your personal invitation to meet these phenomenal authors!