Rosemary Carrano, noted New York City book publicist passed away peacefully at her home in Tamarac, FL on June 26th at the age of 61. Her passing was due to complications brought on by fronto-temporal dementia (FTD), an ailment Rose had battled against the last few years. Rose is survived by her husband, Roy along with their son, Raphael Wiemann in addition to her father, “Rudy,” stepmother, Katie and three brothers, John, Carl and Anthony Carrano.

It was on May 10th, 1955 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, NY that Rose was born to Rudolph and Rosemary Carrano, the third of four children. Only a few years later, her family relocated to the nearby Long Island hamlet of King’s Park where she resided through her high school graduation. After a brief period studying at Huron College in South Dakota and then, John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, Rose began to pursue a budding interest in the publishing world of NYC which became the foundation of her lifelong career.

That focus on publishing evolved from administrative duties early on for McGraw-Hill and subsequently, Franklin Watts Publishers before securing a position at HarperCollins’s publicity department. It was there that Rose spent 12 years guiding a diverse assemblage of authors and titles of various interests eventually becoming Director of Publicity in 1998. As staff publicist and then, director, Rose’s eclectic projects included the very successful children’s book series of Laura Numeroff’s, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” the fiction of Jackie Collins, John Sayles, and Vikram Seth, self-help from Thomas Moore as well as handling the memoirs of film legends, Ernest Borgnine, Peter Falk and Anthony Quinn.

In 2000, Rose left HarperCollins to form her own public relations firm where she continued until 2012.

Shortly thereafter in February of 2013, Rose was diagnosed with FTD, a fast-moving form of dementia that strikes a younger profile and physically targets the brain’s frontal lobes. It’s this area which handles the cognitive and reasoning capabilities; essentially the “how” and “why” comprehension which unfortunately disappears by the physical reduction of these crucial components. Natural functions of sympathy and empathy are replaced by apathy and indifference in this “behavioral-variant” of the disease in addition to the slow but steady decline and obliteration of communicative and motor skills.

At that juncture marked by her diagnosis, her husband, Roy Wiemann enrolled Rose in two ongoing research studies at the University of California at San Francisco Memory and Aging Center in hopes of offering insight for future advances against the disease and ultimately, producing a potential cure. These studies were under the guidance of Center Director, Dr Bruce Miller and Associate Professor of Neurology, Dr Howard Rosen. As of now, there are no medicinal or therapeutic offerings to combat and cure this tragic disease. Despite the prognosis of FTD, UCSF was an incredibly invaluable support these few years.

She was also a long-time member of Soka Gakkai International, an organization dedicated to the spreading of world peace through culture and education based on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism. Rose often opened her home on Bleeker Street for meetings filled with chanting and dialogues, while eagerly visiting members home providing emotional and spiritual support with an open ear, caring voice, and sincere prayers to the Gohonzon.

If you would like to support the family, please check out:
https://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/raising-for-rose/127548