Karen Harris or Shannyn Downey
of cmi speaker management
(877) 307-7403 | toll-free
conniebookings@cmispeakers.com
Connie Dieken
159 Crocker Park Blvd., #403
Westlake, OH 44145
(800) 505-9480 | toll-free
(440) 930-8500 | local
She's a smart cookie. Medical student Priscilla Chan inspired her famously private boyfriend, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, to lead a public health revolution. Over dinnertime chat, Priscilla shared stories of how patients she interacted with that day were impacted by organ donations. Those who failed to find donors were dying. Those lucky enough to be on the receiving end of donations lived. Priscilla lit up like a firecracker when she shared stories about lives saved. "Why don't more people donate?" she wondered, "If only people knew about the critical shortage of organs for people who are desperately in need." That's where dinner talk turned to into action.
Let's set aside the color featured in her saucy book trilogy for a moment. The shade that's dominating the New York Times bestseller list. Literary sensation E.L. James is tickled pink. The author of Fifty Shades of Grey is simultaneously revving the engines of women and upending the publishing world. Originally a self-published author – and a first-timer, at that – James is stunned that she's influencing the way books are bought and sold. In a statement to the BBC, James calls it "an extraordinary and wholly unexpected adventure." Fifty Shades began as a free e-book, allowing for discrete buying for those who didn't want others to know they were reading erotica. After eager book club members started recommending it, the trilogy exploded and went viral. (Not to be confused with the naughty acts she writes about, of course.)