How to Make the Biggest Impact with a Book That Has an Important Message with Carol and Matthew Newell

06/28/21 • 27 min

Carol and Matthew Newell run the Family Hope Center. It's an organization that has so far supported over 20,000 families dealing with special needs children.

Carol and Matthew took some of the ideas they've refined throughout their careers and turned them into a book.

One of the key challenges they faced is having spent their entire careers as experts in their field, they found it hard to convey the knowledge they take for granted.

I've experienced reading books written by clinicians, and I appreciate that the books could often be challenging to read. I was struck by how accessible their new book, Healing Your Child's Brain, is.

I wanted to understand how they turned their expertise into something that parents can understand. It was interesting to hear how they didn't write the book to generate an income. Instead, they're doing it because of the message they want to share with parents.

In this episode we discuss:

Their background and how they came to start The Family Hope Centre
How society forces people to be labeled disabled
The importance of making information easy for parents to understand.
What is a neuroparent and how to become one
The reasons behind them writing the book
How they are getting the book into the hands of as many parents as possible

Resources

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins
Thanks for listening!

Carol and Matthew Newell run the Family Hope Center. It's an organization that has so far supported over 20,000 families dealing with special needs children.

Carol and Matthew took some of the ideas they've refined throughout their careers and turned them into a book.

One of the key challenges they faced is having spent their entire careers as experts in their field, they found it hard to convey the knowledge they take for granted.

In this episode we discuss:

Their background and how they came to start The Family Hope Centre
How society forces people to be labeled disabled
The importance of making information easy for parents to understand.
What is a neuroparent and how to become one
The reasons behind them writing the book
How they are getting the book into the hands of as many parents as possible

Resources

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins
Thanks for listening!

Previous Episode

Writing a Collection of Personal Essays With Irish Times Journalist Patrick Freyne

I recently read a collection of personal essays by my guest today, the Irish Times journalist Patrick Freyne. It’s called OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea.

In the book, Patrick reflects on the jobs he’s had, his time in a band, and a friend who unexpectedly passed away. He didn’t necessarily set out to write a book, but one of his personal essays gained traction with a popular writing publication in Ireland.

I had the chance to catch up with Patrick and ask him about his writing process and how he put together a collection of personal essays.

I started by asking Patrick all about this book, OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea.
In this episode we discuss:

How Patrick relied on his memory when writing the essays
Patrick explains his writing process
Patrick's love of short stories
Having a criteria for what goes in the book
How Patrick promoted the book

Resources:

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins
Thanks for listening!

Next Episode

The Principles of a Good Story with Daniel Joshua Rubin

Chicago-based scriptwriter Daniel Joshua Rubin is the author of 27 Essential Principles of Story.

This book stands out because Daniel uses modern examples like South Park and Breaking Bad to describe how storytelling principles work. Then, he explains how writers can apply the principles to writing screenplays, novels, etc.

Daniel describes what it means to live a writing life and how sometimes you need to separate your identity from being a successful writer.

Towards the end of our conversation, we went off-topic and talked about how investing, and the stock market has something in common with a good plot.

In this episode we discuss:

Deciding on the number of principles
Using popular media to convey the principles
Should you outline a story first
Daniel's writing process
How long it takes to write a script

Resources:

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins
Thanks for listening!

Become a Writer Today - How to Make the Biggest Impact with a Book That Has an Important Message with Carol and Matthew Newell

Transcript

Matthew: Well, we teach parents. We’ve been teaching this particular information for 20 years. And our audience could be a doctor, a neurologist, you know, who says, “I learned more in three days than I’ve learned in medical school,” and then we’ll have a parent over there that graduated ninth grade, an Amish family who graduated ninth grade over there in the other seat. So we’ll have 60, 70 people in a room and what we’ve been really working hard is how do you t