The cover for Baby Dust is here!

We can finally reveal the cover of our next release, Baby Dust: A Novel about Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss.

The novel will be released in October 2011 during Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Month. We will be hosting several events on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, which is October 15th, including a candle lighting during the International Wave of Light, a book reading, and possibly a Walk to Remember. Plans will be developing over at www.pregnancyloss.info in the coming months.

Back cover copy for the book:

The five women sitting in the circle of chairs all had great dreams of motherhood.

Then their babies died.

Melinda joins the support group after she is forced to leave her miscarried fetus in a trash can rather than inconvenience her power-lawyer husband on a business trip. There she meets Dot, who believes the wrath of God caused the baby conceived in an extra-marital affair to grow without a brain.

They are joined by seventeen-year-old Tina, who is ejected from the high school for pregnant teens when her premature baby lives only a few hours.

Their friend Janet’s miscarriage has evolved into uterine cancer. And Stella, who leads the group, must face the old choices that cost her a family of her own.

Based on the stories of dozens of real survivors, Baby Dust is a moving tribute to the strength of mothers who must endure this most impossible loss.

Support the film Peekaboo!

A movie on the topic of stillbirth. Wow! It's called Peekaboo, and it's being made in the UK by award-winning Big Buddha Films with an amazing pair of lead actors. In the story, a mother loses her triplets, and the movie deals with the aftermath in her life.

Shooting begins in mid-March, so it's time to show them some support--time to say--it's ABOUT TIME to get this issue more out in the open!

What can you do?

1. "Like" them on Facebook. Leave a comment. Get the word spreading.

2. Get a copy of the DVD when it comes out by donating. There's no sure thing that it will be widely available to see, so ensure your copy right now by going to the Indie Go Go site where people like YOU help fund independent films. (They have just a few thousand dollars to go to be completely funded--they've already raised several thousand on their own.)

3. Already buying one of the Baby Memorial Books for your sweet angel? Casey Shay Press is donating $10 towards the filming of Peekaboo for every book sold through the end of February. That adds up fast! So GO, buy yours now! The book is $18.99 and is made specifically for babies lost to miscarriage or stillbirth, emphasizing the sweet memories of your pregnancy as well as having space for memorials and angelversaries. You don't have to do anything special, the donation happens automatically.

4. Take action, talk about this, and know you have done something for yourself, for your baby, and for the moms who will come after you. The more we do, the easier it will be for each successive generation of grieving mothers to talk about their babies. Remember how no one used to talk about breast cancer? Look at the pink explosion now. Let's make this happen for miscarriage and stillbirth too. We don't have to shut our mouths. Our babies were real, our grief is real, and we shouldn't just be quiet and get over it. The only way is to get involved.

Sale on the Angel book

Casey Shay Press has made its memorial book a flat $10 and its Angel bumper sticker $1 from now through Oct. 15. US Shipping is only $3.99 for both, but they ship anywhere. Go get yours!

See the book in this video (click on it to see it full screen).



Remember to light your candles at 7 p.m!

New bumper sticker in honor of Mother's Day

We decided that it would be fun to create a bumper sticker in honor of all the angels we want to keep close to our hearts. Get yours!

In the Company of Angels Release Day

I'm caught up in my tale, finally, and the day we put out the book Casey Shay Press was created to make has finally arrived.

To help pay for the print run, we did preorders of the book. We got about 1/3 of the cost covered before they arrived.

Of course the shipment had problems. New laws on importing books meant they got held up in customs for a couple weeks until the broker and I could get everything straight. This also meant the books that were preordered through the press didn't make it out in time for Christmas, which I had hoped for.

I sent the first shipment to Amazon and they just immediately began selling them rather than waiting for release day. But I was okay with that. The baby was here! Really here!

The trailer was shared so much during Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Month. I remember watching the stats and thinking--really? That many people?

I haven't even posted it. Here it is!

Taking the overseas print run plunge

So you'll probably remember the original problem from an earlier post: I needed $6,000 to print the book I'd started the press to do.

I wasn't any richer.

But I did have one somewhat successful book. Even though I wasn't making enough money to fund the second, I felt a lot better about this whole venture.

So I decided just to do it. Even though the bank had turned down a loan, they had given me a low-interest credit card. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to make this happen. And so I did it.

I was halfway through production on In the Company of Angels, using photographs I'd already taken and models for whom I already had releases, trying not to spend any money until I knew what I was doing. I sent out a notice that I'd love to have additional children pose as angels for the book, as long as the families had a pregnancy loss in their history. I had an idea that to make the book really special, I wanted the parents who filled out the book to feel a connection with the images in this precious album. I had to get it right.

So shooting resumed, and I contacted the broker for the good overseas bid to start production.