When Janine Kovac gives birth to micro preemie twins nearly four months before they are due, she channels the grace and strength that carried her through a successful ballet career. The human body has amazing healing powers if you just know how to listen to it. But old habits bring up old haunts and bitter memories--the futile quest for perfection and a career-ending injury. In the sterile, fluorescent world of the NICU, ballet breeds hope as the twins make a miraculous recovery. Can it also bring resolution to the dancer so many years after the abrupt and painful end to the career she loved so much?

Sometimes as a parent, you know exactly what to do. You just don't know how to get it done.

Brain Changer is a short self-help book designed to give parents a new perspective on how to trouble-shoot and strategize in times of conflict--all with a twist of cutting-edge cognitive science.

Each of the nine chapters is rooted in a different scene at the NICU and pairs a challenge at the time with a strategy gleaned from cognitive science. Chapter subjects include: practicing self-care, building community, monitoring progress, practicing gratitude and empathy, fostering resilience, and moving on when the science falls short.

Follow Janine Kovac as she relies on her research to help her cope when her twins are born fifteen weeks before they are due and spend three months in the hospital in the newborn intensive care unit.

Based on her thesis A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Parenting, for which she received U.C. Berkeley's Robert J. Glushko Prize for Distinguished Undergraduate Research in Cognitive Science, Janine Kovac's Brain Changer is a must-read for parents looking to practice self-care, manage flow, and cultivate a growth mindset as they model these healthy behaviors for their own children.

In Mamas Write: 29 Tales of Truth, Wit, and Grit, twenty-four moms (and one dad) share stories from their lives as writers and parents.

Essays range from finding one's calling as a writer through adopting a toddler; a tribute to a dying wife; an account of a premature birth; raising a transgender child; the joys of sharing a favorite childhood book. In a concluding interview, authors share funny and heartfelt responses to questions such as: How does a busy parent make time for writing? Why do you write, and where? What writing books inspire you? and What holds you back from writing?

With a foreword by Kate Hopper, author of Ready For Air: A Journey through Premature Motherhood and Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers.