Teresa Barker, co-founder, is a longtime co-author, book content consultant, developmental editor and journalist. She is the co-writer, author, or editorial collaborator behind 19 books, including:
LIT: Life Ignition Tools: Use Nature’s Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action with Jeff Karp, PhD (William Morrow 2024)
A Next Big Idea Book Club Must Read
Radically simple experimental tools to help anyone tap into a high-energy brain state to fire up innovative potential and shape their lives with intention—by the founder of a Harvard biomedical engineering innovation lab.
In an age of convenience and information overload, it’s easy to go through the motions, pressured, distracted, and seeking instant gratification rather than harnessing our potential for meaningful and impactful lives. When we’re accustomed to a low energy brain state and lulled by the comfort zone it creates, it’s difficult to rouse ourselves to act with intention and create the lives we truly want to lead.
The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World with Michael Rich, MD, MPH (Harper Horizon 2024)
A Whole-Child Approach to Digital Wellness and Healthy Media Use
“…a godsend for the parent whose child is glued to their smartphone or laptop.” –Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D., psychologist, author of Raising Cain
In this holistic approach, Dr. Michael Rich empowers you to guide your children toward smart and healthy digital choices with straightforward instructions and actionable advice that you can customize for your family’s specific needs.
Known as the “Mediatrician” due to his acclaimed work as a pediatrician, child health researcher, and children’s media specialist, Dr. Rich presents a compassionate and realistic look at the reality of growing up in a screen-saturated world—and how you can help your kids emerge from a technology-rich environment as happy, well-informed, empathetic adults.
Backed by scientific evidence and decades of professional and personal practice, The Mediatrician’s Guide will give you the tools to:
- Combat toxic media influences and virtual addiction.
- Train your family toward digital wellness.
- Understand what your child is learning from media.
- Rise above the anxiety of digital inundation and find a healthy, happy medium.
“…offer[s] seasoned and sensible guardrails as we all enter this brave new world together.” –Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent, CNN
“…[A] thoughtful, timely, and entertaining overview of what it means to grow up immersed in a world of digital ubiquity.” –John Battelle, Cofounder of WIRED
A Tattoo on my Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle Against Alzheimer’s with Daniel Gibbs, MD (Cambridge University Press 2021)
The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug with Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, and Tom Patterson, Ph.D. (Hachette, March 2019)
2019 Best Book Amazon and Best Book Science; Finalist Audie2020 Awards; Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA) 1st in category winner of the JOURNEY book awards for non-fiction; Finalist Goodreads Choice Awards, Best in Science & Technology
“A real-life medical thriller that proves when science, medicine, and perseverance align…In this fast-paced memoir … the writing is always infused with humor, hope, and intelligence, and the couple’s remarkable story is grounded in real-life details that bring readers directly into their world: … as this page-turning book shows, she is a hero whose insight and determination could serve as models to help save many more lives.” Kirkus
“Page turner …gripping and intriguing…” Publishers Weekly starred review
Why Will No One Play with Me? A Parent’s Guide to Coaching Your Child from Social Challenge to Success with Caroline Maguire, ACCG, MEd. (Grand Central, September 2019)
“This thoughtful, compassionate primer to helping children overcome social challenges from Maguire, a coach for children with ADHD and their families, puts a full roster of tools, along with some encouragement, into the hands of parents…breaks down an issue that can seem overwhelming into practical, bite-size chunks…comprehensive and usable.” Publishers Weekly
Winner Mom’s Choice Award
Winner Parenting Category Best Book Awards/BookFest
Winner Book Authority’s Best ADHD Books of All Time
SELF-REG: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life with Stuart Shanker, PhD (Penguin 2016)
The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life with Lynne Twist. (W.W. Norton 2003; Re-issue Spring 2017).
Winner, 2004 Nautilus Grand Prize
The Spiritual Child: The New Science of Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving with Lisa Miller, PhD (St. Martin’s Press 2015). New York Times bestseller
The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age with Catherine Steiner-Adair, EdD (HarperCollins 2013). The Wall Street Journal Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2013, Publishers Weekly starred review
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys with Michael Thompson, PhD, and Dan Kindlon, PhD (Ballantine 1999). New York Times and Independent Booksellers bestseller, Publisher’s Weekly starred review, Pulitzer Prize nominee
Homesick & Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow with Michael G. Thompson, PhD. (Ballantine 2012)
It’s A Boy! Understanding Your Son’s Development from Birth to Eighteen with Michael G. Thompson, PhD (Ballantine 2008)
Sky Above Clouds: Finding Our Way through Creativity, Aging and Illness with Wendy Miller, PhD and Gene Cohen, MD, PhD (Oxford University Press 2016)
The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life with Michael G. Thompson, PhD (Ballantine 2004)
The Creative Age: Awakening Potential in the Second Half of Life, (Avon 2000) and The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, (Basic Books 2005) with author Gene Cohen, MD, PhD
Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons with Michael G. Thompson, PhD (Ballantine 2000)
In the Moment: Celebrating the Everyday with Harvey L. Rich, MD (HarperCollins 2002) USA Today Top Reading
Cell-Level healing: The Bridge from Soul to Cell with Joyce Whitely Hawkes, PhD (Atria 2005) and Resonance: Nine Practices for Harmonious Health and Vitality (Hay House 2012)
Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident, Courageous Daughters with JoAnn Deak, PhD. USA Today Top Summer Reading Pick. (Hyperion, 2002)
The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading, with Shireen Dodson (HarperCollins 1997)
As a health writer and editor, Barker was lead writer for the pioneering syndicated newsletter Regarding Women and Healthcare for a decade, producing research-based feature stories, briefs and self-care tips for a national women’s audience. The quarterly newsletter, distributed via client hospitals and clinics, received repeated awards for content. She also served as senior editor, responsible for client relations, issue planning, freelance coordination, developmental editing, copy editing and production supervision, for MediMedia USA/Health Newsletters Direct.
Formerly a news reporter and feature writer and editor, Barker was editor and senior writer for the “Healthy Living” section of the Chicago Sun-Times; a reporter and features editor for The Nashville Tennessean; education, courts and feature writer for the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard; staff writer for Advertising Age; and a regular freelance contributor to the Chicago Tribune “Tempo” section, Time magazine’s Chicago bureau, and other publications. Earlier in her career she was an advertising copywriter for clients including Pizza Hut, Riceland Rice, Goo-Goo Candy Clusters and Pamprin.
Barker’s work in journalism earned her the 2010 Top Project at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, and the Oregon Newspaper Publisher’s Association Award for Excellence in Education Reporting. She held a graduate teaching fellowship at the University of Oregon from 2008 to 2010, and was awarded a master’s degree in literary non-fiction from the university and membership in Kappa Tau Alpha professional Journalism honor society in 2010. She received her bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee.
Barker can be reached at teresabarker@gmail.com.