Tim Wendel

You can now find me there under the handle Bookish Tim -- https://www.witlingo.com/bookish-tim/
Just follow the prompts and you can hear me reading from various works in the upcoming weeks. Some of these will be my own -- Cancer Crossings, Summer of '68, etc. -- but more will be short passages from my favorite writers, famous and unknown.
I'll soon be on Google Home and Microsoft Cortana, too.  Read More 

The launch for "Cancer Crossings" began on April 15 at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., and the first wave of promotion finished 3,000 miles away on June 6 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif.
Book Passage is another amazing indie bookstore. My thanks to the great folks there and to Alta Magazine for naming me as part of its reading series.
Go to Tim Wendel Books on Facebook to find video from the appearance.
It was an incredible 10-week run and so good to catch up with so many friends and make many new ones, too.  Read More 

During my recent swing through Western New York, I was honored to moderate a conversation on Facebook Live with Dr. Kara Kelly and Dr. Martin Brecher of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Our topic was advances in pediatric cancer.
The science has come a long way in the half century since my brother was first diagnosed with  Read More 

It's official: "Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia" will be published this weekend.

Thanks to so many people for believing in the project, which was a departure for me in many ways.

The great group of editors at Cornell Press, starting with Dean Smith, Fran Benson and Suzanne Gordon, made this a much better book than the original manuscript.

Also, thanks to the doctors who spoke with me and took the time to explain what it was like to take on this shape-shifter of a disease. We lost Dr. James Holland, one of the giants in this field in recent weeks. But his words and philosophy live on in these pages.

And, finally, special thanks to my family. We've been through a lot together and we continue to sail for the far horizon.  Read More 

In this column, I write about an important conversation I had with Dr. Donald Pinkel while researching "Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest for a Cure Childhood Leukemia." Dr. Pinkel was the first director of pediatrics at Roswell Park in Buffalo and went on to build St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. Here he's shown with the hospital's founder, actor Danny Thomas.
Pinkel's insights helped me understand the dynamics within my own family during the years my brother was battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The new column is entitled "No Time for Conversation."  Read More 

Thrilled to be asked to do a monthly blog for Psychology Today. We kick things off with an excerpt from "Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia."
A reminder that the official book launch will be at Politics & Prose, the great independent bookstore in Washington, D.C., on Sunday April 22. The events begins at 1 p.m. with amazing novelist and good friend Mary Kay Zuravleff moderating the discussion. More events coming soon. Keep an eye on the Calendar section on this web site.  Read More 

Thanks to Ken Burns for endorsing Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia.
He says, "For as long as I have followed his work, Tim Wendel has always chosen a distinct path of intimate stories within big topics, those subjects revealed by his superb way of getting at  Read More 

Thanks to the good people at Cornell Press, especially designer Scott Levine, for this great cover for Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia. I love how it pops.
To go along with it, I recently received a gracious endorsement from filmmaker Ken Burns: "For as long as  Read More 

Coming down the homestretch. These edits need to be back to the publisher by mid-September.

Since January, I've been working with a voice coach, improving my delivery for the classroom at Johns Hopkins and with an eye on the next book tour. It's been fun to take on some commercials, animation and narration. Learning how to vary the pitch, cadence, dare say the feeling of what I'm saying.
In the course of the lessons, with the amazing Mark Neely, I realized the audio for several of my books (Red Rain, Night on Manitou Island, Down to the Last Pitch) has yet to be done. I think I'm now going to tackle them myself.
Last week, I did a demo tape at Bias Studios in Springfield, Va., where Danny Gatton, Emmylou Harris and my friends Eddie From Ohio have cut albums. It was a bit unnerving to walk into Studio B and go through multiple takes of my scripts for commercials and narrations. But, all in all, it went pretty well.
Meanwhile, the good folks at Cornell Press, the publishers for Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia, sold the audio rights to the new book to Blackstone Audio.
In a nice twist, Blackstone is interested in having me do the narration for Cancer Crossings. At the very least, I have a quality demo to send their way. Read More