Victoria Costello

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Whether for conventionally published or self published projects, Victoria Costello brings the voices and compelling stories of real people to life on the page. She works for organizations as a communications strategist and a hands-on producer of multimedia and training materials. Usually, she works on a project basis, and is always willing to have a initial exploratory discussion by phone or email, to see if there's a fit with a new client.

As a ghostwriter, she specializes in science, health and memoirs.

As a coauthor, she's written five prescriptive psychology titles and several book proposals.

Coauthored Books

From Alpha Books/​Penguin Complete Idiot's Guide series in 2011 came two of Victoria's co-authored titles, The Chemistry of Love, a guide to the neuroscience of relationships, written with evolutionary psychologist Maryanne Fisher, and A Guide to Child & Adolescent Psychology, written with preeminent child psychiatrist Jack Westman, M.D.

Also in print are her coauthored books The Parent's Everything Guide to Childhood OCD(Adams Media, 2008), and The Everything Guide to a Happy Marriage (Adams Media, 2009), both written with marriage and family therapist Stephen Martin.

Under her own byline...

Victoria's family memoir titled A Lethal Inheritance, A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Generations of Mental Illness, published by Prometheus Books, reached bookstores in Jan of 2012. An excerpt appears in the March issue of Scientific American Mind magazine.

Dec 2011 brought another how-to title for Alpha Books: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir, a handbook on craft and content for new and established memoir writers.

Victoria has written regular blog posts for PsychologyToday.com, PsychCentral.com, Mamapedia.com, TweenParent.com, Yahoo Health & Wellness News. She is a frequent public speaker on behalf of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco to corporate and community audiences.

In her Emmy award winning television career, Victoria Costello specialized in digesting and translating technical and scientific materials into more colloquial terms. She won her 1995 Emmy for writing and producing a Disney TV special she co-produced with National Audubon Society called “This Island Earth,” a look at the human health implications of endangered species that TV Guide called “enlightening and entertaining.” She produced a television documentary “Who Will Protect the Family” for PBS with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Frances Fitzgerald. Costello created film and print media on family planning programs and women’s maternal health in Africa and Central America for The United Nations Population Program’s Face to Face Campaign.

Based in San Francisco since 1998, she has worked as a web writer, site editor and executive producer of web content for SchoolCity.com, a website serving teachers, parents and k-12 students, and MedicinePlanet.com, a travel medicine resource website.

She is a member in good standing of the following professional organizations: The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Authors Guild, The Association of Health Care Journalists, and the American Society of Journalists & Authors.

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Some of my Recent Articles and Website Updates follow: