Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason

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Michael Paul Mason was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After earning an undergraduate degree in English Literature, Mason wrote and edited for a number of Oklahoma-based publications. In 2000, he created the unconventional literary journal Me Head, which included the works of writers and poets such as Sarah Brown, Matthew Crouch, Christopher Dooley, Jared Gilbert and Shin Yu Pai. Mason continues to write on a variety of topics and is currently a contributing writer to DISCOVER magazine.

From 2002 through 2007, Mason worked as a brain injury case manager for the Neurologic Rehabilitation Institute at Brookhaven Hospital. As a case manager, Mason traveled to nearly every state in America in an effort to help survivors of severe traumatic brain injury find appropriate treatment. Moved by the heroic struggle of survivors and their families, Mason began collecting stories, which became the groundwork for his first book of non-fiction, Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath.

In February 2007, by invitation from the Department of Defense, Mason traveled to Balad, Iraq where he witnessed the "brain injury capital of the world" in motion. The Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Airbase proved to be the catalyst for several magazine articles, among them Dead Men Walking and Iraq's Medical Meltdown. Mason also includes a moving account of Iraq War veterans and wounded Iraqis in Head Cases.

In the course of working as a brain injury case manager, Mason become a certified brain injury specialist and continues to advocate for reforms in brain injury care. Recently, he was one of the moderators of the first annual Brain Injury Consensus Conference, which brought together over 100 brain injury professionals in an effort to address treatment issues for Iraq War veterans as well as American civilians with TBI. Mason currently serves as vice-president of the Brain Injury Association of Oklahoma and regularly delivers engaging talks nationwide.

For more information visit michaelpaulmason.com