Wood publishes book based on ‘House Organ’ columns
Take a reference to a John Lennon song and add that to 19 years of writing more than 200 columns and you have a book.
At least that’s the route author Wayne Wood took, who has turned his popular House Organ column, “Watching the Wheels” into a collection of more than 75 of his favorite columns.
Wood, assistant director of News and Public Affairs and director of publications, has been editor of Vanderbilt Medical Center’s in-house monthly employee magazine House Organ since 1984. Each month he’s penned a popular column where he offers his views on different subjects — pets, family vacations, the media — and expounds on those views.
“Much like the John Lennon song ‘Watching the Wheels’,” Wood explained. “The idea of the song is that a guy is just sitting there, watching thing go by, and thinking about them. I liked that reference and thus it became the title of my column.”
Wood’s real motivation behind writing and editing the book is much more noble. It was his desire to do something for a co-worker who had suffered the devastating loss of a child.
Half of all profits from the sale of the book goes to the Jade Pasley Patient and Family Assistance Fund at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Jade Pasley was the daughter of Wood’s colleague Jessica Pasley.
Jade was diagnosed with acute myeloginous leukemia when she was one year old. Her twin sister, Jillian, was diagnosed with the same disease only a few months later. Jade died of her cancer about a year after her diagnosis. Jillian went into remission and following a successful bone marrow transplant last year, continues to do well.
“I want the book to serve as an education and fundraising vehicle for something worthwhile at the Medical Center,” Wood said. “Jade’s Fund is not only worthwhile, it allows me to help a co-worker.”
The paperback book is on sale for $15.95 (plus tax) and can be purchased online at amazon.com, booksamillion.com, barnesandnoble.com, iUniverse.com, or locally at the Vanderbilt Bookstore, the Medical Center Bookstore, and from the Medical Center North Hair Salon.
You can meet Wood, purchase a book and have it signed at a reading that is part of the Author’s Series at September’s Employee Celebration on Tuesday, Sept. 16 from noon to 1 p.m. in Light Hall.