“Casting Call” for Heart Warriors 2

Welcome

Hello, and thank you for your interest in Heart Warriors Two, Adults Facing Congenital Heart Disease and What They Have to Teach Us and Each Other.

Please read the following information in its entirety before applying for participation in this project. If, after reading this material, you would still like to participate, complete the form below and if you are screened for participation, you will receive an email notification and a packet in the mail with further instructions.

Overview

This project is a follow up to Heart Warriors, A Family Faces Congenital Heart Disease. With the publication of that book some concerns regarding the different perspectives between patient and parent were raised.  This project seeks to give voice to the varied experiences and needs of adults to both express their history and hopes regarding Congenital Heart Disease.  Mostly, it’s a chance for them to be heard, in their own words, for a global audience.

Implementation

  • 75-100 applicants will be screened for participation
  • 10-25 applicants will be invited to interview
  • Applicants who are invited and decide to participate will not be compensated for their participation before, during, or after publication. This is because this book is not under contract with a publisher, including fact checking and supplemental interviews more than 50 individuals will be interviewed for this project and the royalties, if there are any at all, cannot effectively be divided accordingly.
  • Participants will have one editorial review of the final draft to give input.
  • Participants are expected to provide secondary resources (doctors, parents, spouses, siblings, etc.) to verify events and add depth to the interviews.
  • Participants may be quoted but will not be writing their narratives.
  • Participants have the option to choose a pseudonym if they so desire but it is optional.
  • Participants may or may not be photographed for the publication of this project.
  • The writer of this project retains all copyright, print rights, media rights, etc.
  • 15% of royalties from this project will be directed to The Adult Congenital Heart Association upon publication, this includes any book advance.
  • All participants will sign a release and waiver before their interviews are conducted.

Structure

  • The book will either be constructed as a sequence of individual narratives or based on theme. The decision will be based on the quantity, quality, and originality of the participant’s cumulative interviews.
  • The book will include interviews with nurses, physicians, and physician assistants practicing at Adult Congenital Heart clinics in the USA.
  • The book will conclude, for the sake of continuity, with Liam Adams, the subject of the original Heart Warriors work, as he approaches his tenth birthday, and the questions posed to Liam will come from the learnings from all of  the participants’ interviews as well as the participants themselves (all participants will be asked to provide a question for Liam for the interview and the most appropriate questions will be posed to him).