Claudia Cornwall's Blog

British Columbia in Flames was nominated for one of the BC Book Awards--the Roderick Haig-Brown Award for Regional Writing. The winner will be announced in September.

My book was also nominated for a BC Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing. The winner of that award will be announced in June.

BC in Flames will be available on April 25, 2020!
In the meantime, here is a short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTPWK...

The treatment of melanoma is undergoing a sea change thanks in part to the pioneering work of James Allison, Tasuko Honjo, and Gordon Freeman. They paved the way for what some are calling the immunotherapy revolution. I was fortunate enough to interview all three men and come to understand the science which saved my husband's life. My discussions with the investigators can be found in “Battling Melanoma.” The innovative trio have received many scientific prizes and awards. But so far, the oldest and most prestigious one, the Nobel, has eluded them. However, I recently read that Thomson Reuters, an information business, has predicted that this year, the Nobel for physiology and medicine will go to immunotherapy research. If Thomson Reuters is right, then Allison, Honjo, and Freeman, as well as some other scientists will share the Nobel for their work! Since 2002, Thomson Reuters has forecast 37 Nobel Prize winners, so its record is pretty good! The Prize will be announced early in October.

"Battling Melanoma" was launched while I was on holidays at a rustic cabin with limited internet access. The book began garnering notice:

Melanoma―the term is derived from the Greek for 'black tumor'―is a cancer of the skin that is difficult to cure if not caught at an early stage. Canadian Cornwall shares her husband Gordon’s struggle with malignant melanoma. Diagnosed in 2012, the tumor appeared as a pimply growth on his left arm and metastasized to other sites, including his brain. She describes the multiple doctors who treated him and their occasional differences in medical opinion. Cornwall concludes, 'It seemed that no one person had a monopoly on the truth or the best course of action.' She details the many scans, biopsies, and surgeries Gordon undergoes along with radiation treatment. Paramount is his participation in a clinical trial with an investigational immunotherapy drug which proves highly effective for Gordon and is later approved by the FDA. Cornwall paints the fight against cancer as truly a team effort. Worry and uncertainty accompany the disease, but standing in its way are the bulwarks hope and love. Cornwall’s passionate account highlights the importance of diligence and persistence, hunches and luck.
"Booklist," August, 2016

In June 2013, my husband, Gordon, learned that his melanoma had gone metastatic. He had half a dozen tumours in his abdomen and one in his brain. We both wondered whether it was “game-over.” I was haunted by a story of Atul Gawande's called "Letting Go," which describes some of the “heroic measures” that doctors take to prolong lives—doomed remedies that can make patients’ last days utterly wretched. Neither Gordon nor I wanted his life to end in such a miserable fashion. Had we reached the point where we should stop looking for a cure and concentrate on living the next few months—as fully as possible? Gordon asked his oncologist, Sasha Smiljanic, what he thought. Dr. Smiljanic was emphatic: Gordon should not give up: he should have his brain tumour removed surgically and then look for a clinical trial of a medicine that would dispatch his other cancers.

Gordon had the surgery and then we began searching for a study. Despite several attempts, we couldn't find anything in Canada for which Gordon qualified. We went further afield. I made dozens of phone calls. Finally, we learned about a study in Texas that had a spot for just two more patients. We scrambled to get Gordon enrolled. He had his first infusion in August 2013 and flew back to Vancouver to see how the medicine would affect him. Would Gordon be one of the lucky ones? The outcome of the treatment was astonishing. Not only did Gordon respond, he responded within in three days!

"Battling Melanoma" takes a reader through the emotional upheaval that can follow a diagnosis of cancer. It also demonstrates what activist patients can do to help themselves. The world of cancer is changing rapidly, and now with the latest scientific data only a few keyboard clicks away, patients and their families can access the most up to date information and find treatments for conditions that only recently were deemed incurable.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR "BATTLING MELANOMA"
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"Catching Cancer: the quest for its viral and bacterial causes" is now available in paperback. The publisher is offering a 30% discount if you order directly from Rowman & Littlefield at https://rowman.com

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30% DISCOUNT OFFER OFF LIST PRICE PLEASE ORDER USING THIS CODE: 4M13CRNWL 978-1-4422-1521-4 • Paperback $24.00 list price (sale price $16.80) 978-1-4422-1520-7 • Hardback $36.00 list price (sale price $25.20)
* Discount code can be used with eBook purchases.

Call toll-free: 1-800-462-6420

My newest book, Catching Cancer:the quest for its viral and bacterial causes, will be available in April; pre-release reviews are starting to trickle in.

“… Journalist Cornwall’s captivating book integrates biography, history, scientific theory, and molecular biology. It also illuminates the nature of scientific discovery—part personality, brilliance, and perseverance with a smidgen of intuition and luck. The link between infection and cancer is indisputable. Stay tuned as this story continues to evolve.” — Booklist, Starred Review

“… In this book, Cornwall expands her thesis, delving into the fitful search for microbial causes of cancer by highlighting the work of seven remarkable scientists (including several Nobel Prize winners) who … have managed to inch us that much closer to conquering a scourge that kills 7.5 million people annually. … Cornwall insists that the work of these researchers may someday make “catching” cancer less scary.” — Publishers Weekly

Order directly through Rowman & Littlefield at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442215207 for a 30% discount on book title. Use promotion code 4M13CRNWL at checkout for 30% off – this promotion is valid until December 31, 2013. This offer excludes eBooks and cannot be combined with any other promo or discount offers.

Creating a book trailer was harder than I thought it would be. It took us three tries! For the first one, Gordon and I went over to the Cates Park beach in North Vancouver—where the opening scene of At the World’s Edge takes place. It was a lovely West Coast afternoon; we got background sounds of water lapping at the shore, squirrels chattering in the trees, and a lovely long lonely wail from the train that skirts the south shore of Burrard Inlet. I read from the book, which usually goes over quite well, when I do so in person…but on the video? For some reason, it missed…

So back to the story board. We decided to do something quite different. We’d shoot in Chinatown in an alley that Curt had photographed. This wouldn’t be West Coast idyllic but gritty and edgy—maybe more fitting for the book. So on a Saturday in December, we parked on Chinatown’s main drag and walked over to the particular alley, off Gore Avenue, that interested us. I stood in front of a smelly dirty yellow garbage bin that was covered in graffiti. This time I didn’t read from the book. I spoke earnestly to the camera about Curt’s photography and how Chinatown was a favourite subject of his. It was a disaster. The seagulls were so raucous, they practically drowned me out. Cars kept driving up the alley and interrupting the shoot. And people kept wandering through. Sometimes they asked us what we were doing and what we thought of Vancouver. I think they figured we were tourists on some kind of grunge tour. And so we explained that we weren’t tourists, we lived here, and we showed them Curt’s picture of the alley in 1972. They looked bewildered, they were probably wondering on what planet we made any sense. It was all very distracting.

We returned home and I sent off some emails to people who know more about this than I do. I mulled over their replies and then I got another idea. We didn’t have to shoot any film at all. We could use stills and create movement a la Ken Burns—pan across the stills—zoom in on the aspects that were most intriguing. I spent a morning in the City Archives looking for pictures of the 1400-block West Pender where Curt lived with his good friend, Fred Douglas. There weren’t many pictures of that section of Pender. Other parts of the street were much more popular subjects. But remarkably, there was a photo of the dilapidated building where Curt and Fred shared a rat-infected “pad.” It was perfect. And from there the video grew. We added a photo of Vancouver’s skyline in 1959, as seen from Stanley Park, and included some pictures from the book. We used Curt’s poems typed in courier on onion skin. I love to see that now—the uneven analogue words. And with a clever tool that Gordon found, we got Curt’s words to lift off the page. I wrote to Gregg Simpson asking his advice about music. I knew he’d been a musician in the 60’s and I thought he’d have some good ideas. He sent me a few pieces by the Al Neil trio—of which he had been a member. More serendipidy. The music saturated the video with mood and then it was just a matter of a short narration. Gordon mixed the whole thing, the music, the narration and the pictures, and managed in a quite wizardly fashion to save the parts and the combinations all in the appropriate places. Here it is. http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feat... Did it work? Well, you can be the judge of that!