We asked the 2026 TAA Textbook Award winners why they decided to write their textbook. Whether by invitation, a strong will to start a new textbook, or happenstance, their stories will speak to you no matter where you are in your textbook writing journey.

Why did you decide to write your textbook?

A: Richard Hoefer, author of Advocacy Practice for Social Justice (5e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award:

Social work is founded on the idea that social justice is core to the profession. Yet, at the time of the first edition, I found the alternative texts were inadequate in conveying both the “why?” and the “how?” of advocacy to my students. It thus became my project to write such a book.

A: Myrna LaFleur Brooks, co-author of Exploring Medical Language (12e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Danielle LaFleur Brooks and Dale Levinsky):

In 1970, I taught a two-credit medical terminology course at GateWay Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. I used The Elements of Scientific and Specialized Terminology by Brunner and Berkowitz as my textbook, and through it, I learned to teach medical terminology with the word-part method.

The book only dealt with medical terms built from word parts, so I wanted a book that would broaden its offerings to include terms not built from word parts. Unable to find such a text, my teaching partner Winnie Starr and I proposed this concept to The C.V. Mosby Company. After our proposal was accepted, we began writing Exploring Medical Language: A Student-Directed Approach, which appeared in its first edition in 1985.

A: John Hall, co-author of Guyton & Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology (15e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Michael Hall):

The first edition of the Textbook of Medical Physiology (TMP) was written by Arthur Guyton and published ~70 years ago. Dr. Guyton’s main goal was to write a book that could be used as a valuable basic teaching tool for understanding how the human body works. Dr. Guyton invited me to join him in revising the 9th edition of the TMP more than 35 years ago and it was my honor to accept since it was the leading textbook of physiology and I greatly enjoy teaching and learning more about new developments in physiology. After Dr. Guyton passed in 2003, I continued to revise the TMP every 5 years for the 10th through the 13th editions. Dr. Michael Hall joined me for completion of the 14th and 15th editions. Our main goal has remained the same – to explain, in language easily understood by students, how the different cells, tissues, and organs of the human body work together to maintain life.

A: Erin Schauster, co-author of Media Ethics: Issues and Cases (11e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Chad Painter, Lee Wilkins, and Philip Patterson):

It was an honor to be invited to write the eleventh edition of Media Ethics Issues and Cases and work with esteemed co-authors and media ethicists. The book details novel and contemporary case studies that encourage students to develop new knowledge and activate their moral reasoning and critical thinking. I prioritize these important learning outcomes for my own students and hope the book serves other educators of media and communication coursework

A: Lee Wilkins and Philip Patterson, co-authors of Media Ethics: Issues and Cases (11e), and winners of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Chad Painter and Erin Schauster):

We thought the field needed a case study book that was based in actual cases, not hypotheticals. The book embedded cases in chapter introductions that emphasized philosophy and the latest research findings (and some current changes) in mass communication and journalism. We believed both were essential to prepare students for professional careers.

A: Sandy Fritz, co-author of Mosby’s Fundamentals of Therapeutic Massage (8e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Luke Fritz):

In the 1980s, massage therapy education had almost no dedicated textbooks. At my massage therapy school, we relied on a Mosby anatomy book. I repeatedly told my Mosby sales representative that the profession needed a true massage therapy textbook.

Around that time, Mosby launched a new division called Mosby Lifeline, created to publish textbooks for smaller markets. My sales representative was appointed as acquisitions editor for this new division, and he asked me if I would consider writing a textbook for massage education.

I have dyslexia and no desire to take on a project of that scale. I tried to help by identifying other potential authors, but no one was willing to commit to developing an entry‑level massage therapy textbook. The editorial team assured me they would support me through every step of the process.

That combination — the absence of any other willing authors, the profession’s need for a foundational text, and the promise of editorial guidance — is what ultimately led me to say yes. And that is how I began writing what would become Mosby’s Fundamentals of Therapeutic Massage, a textbook that helped establish the educational framework for the profession.

A: Luke Fritz, co-author of Mosby’s Fundamentals of Therapeutic Massage (8e), and winner of the McGuffey Longevity Award (co-authored with Sandy Fritz):

Interestingly, the first editions were written by my mother Sandy Fritz. This has thus become a generational endeavour. All professions need reliable educational texts to turn to. I am proud to be helping support hers and the book’s legacy while also updating and modifying the material for future generations.

A: Charles Desnoyers and Peter Von Sivers, co-authors of Patterns of World History (5e), and winners of the Textbook Excellence Award:

Existing world history textbooks had little structure and explanation beyond what is often called “the simple growth model.” We wanted a more coherent structure, easily grasped by instructors and students, but one that was neither deterministic nor reductive: one that had substance without being simplistic.

 

A: Craig Miller, co-author of Little and Falace’s Dental Management of the Medically Compromised Patient (10e), and winner of the Textbook Excellence Award (co-authored with Nelson L. Rhodus, Nathaniel S Treister, Eric T. Stoopler, and Alexander Ross Kerr):

Dr. Nelson Rhodus and I were invited by our mentors, Dr. James Little and Dr. Don Falace, to join the 4th edition of the Dental Management of the Medically Compromised Patient text in 1993. Their encouragement and that invitation carried with it a deep sense of responsibility to preserve and advance a work that had already become foundational in helping clinicians safely manage medically complex patients. From the beginning, our goal has been to translate rapidly evolving medical knowledge into practical, evidence-based guidance that can be directly applied in dental practice. Since then, expert authors in the field of Oral Medicine (A. Ross Kerr, Eric T. Stoopler and Nathaniel S. Triester) have joined the team, and Elsevier has published 10 editions of the text.