For People with Cancer & Those Who Love Them
You Don't Have to Navigate Cancer Alone.
Communicating Cancer combines lived experience and research-backed communication strategies to help you, your family, and your friends find connection, hope, and practical tools during one of life's hardest chapters.
Now Available
Communicating Cancer: Communication Strategies for You, Family, and Friends
Most books about cancer tell one person's story. This book is different. Dr. Lisa M. Coutu draws on her own experience with cancer AND on decades of communication research to offer a range of practical communication strategies — not just the path she took. It's the book you'll want in your hands, and the one you'll want to give to someone you love.
This Book Was Written for You
Whoever "you" are in the cancer story.
People with Cancer
Whether you've just been diagnosed or are deep in treatment, this book gives you a range of communication strategies drawn from real experience and real research — so you can find what works for you, not just what worked for someone else.
Family & Friends
Loving someone through cancer is hard. You want to help but may not know what to say. This book gives the people who care about you something concrete — practical, research-backed guidance on how to show up and what actually helps.
Cancer Centers & Institutions
This book bridges the gap between research and the people who need it most. Cancer centers, patient navigators, and care teams will find it a credible, accessible communication resource to recommend or distribute to patients and families.
About the Author
Lisa M. Coutu, Ph.D.
Dr. Lisa M. Coutu is a communication scholar who specializes in how communication shapes communities and their members. She has delved extensively into the research on cancer and communication to understand how communication functions in the world of cancer.
Lisa also brings something no research paper can provide: She has been through breast cancer herself. That personal experience shapes every page of this book, ensuring that the strategies it offers are not just theoretically sound but humanly real.
Communicating Cancer is the book Lisa wished she'd had — and the book she is determined to get into the hands of every person navigating cancer, and every person who loves them.
What Makes This Book Different
Communicating Cancer isn't a memoir — and it isn't a purely academic text. It's both, in service of you.
Experience + Research, Together
Most cancer communication books tell one story. Most cancer communication research never reaches patients. This book does both — lived experience woven with communication scholarship.
A Range of Strategies, Not One Path
What worked for Lisa may not work for you. The book deliberately offers multiple approaches so you can find what fits your situation, relationships, and personality.
Written to Be Readable
No academic jargon. No dense chapters. Every strategy is explained clearly so it's useful in the middle of real life — even when that life feels overwhelming.
The Book You Give Someone You Love
Family and friends often want to help and don't know how. This book is a concrete, caring gift that says "I see you, and I want to support you."
What Readers Are Saying
Real feedback from people who've held this book during a hard time — the truest measure of its value.
- Daniel W. Crofts, Professor Emeritus at The College of New Jersey
"This book is the ideal source for people who have family or friends who are afflicted with cancer. I found it immensely useful and helpful when I learned that a dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer."
Author Events
Thank you for reaching out! Lisa will be in touch soon.
Connect with Lisa
Bring This Resource to Your Community
Cancer centers, hospital patient education programs, support groups, and oncology teams: Lisa is available for speaking engagements, educational partnerships, and outreach collaborations. If you're looking for a credible, compassionate resource to offer your patients and their families, let's talk.
And if you're a reader, a survivor, a caregiver, or someone who just wants to reach out — please do. Hearing that this book has helped someone is exactly what this whole effort is about.
